Nickle, John

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Nickle, John

Personal

Male. Education: University of South Florida, M.F.A., 1983.

Addresses

Home—Brooklyn, NY. E-mail—info@johnnickle.net.

Career

Illustrator and author. Curator of art exhibits, beginning 1996. Exhibitions: Work exhibited at Society of Illustrators shows, 1987-90, 1998; DFN Gallery, New York, NY, 2002, 2004-05; and Storyopolis, Los Angeles, CA, 2006.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

The Ant Bully, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1999.

TV Rex, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2001.

Alphabet Explosion!: Search and Count from Alien to Zebra, Schwartz & Wade (New York, NY), 2006.

ILLUSTRATOR

Judi Barrett, The Things That Are Most in the World, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1998.

Judi Barrett, Never Take a Giraffe to the Movies, and Other Things Not to Do, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2007.

Kathryn Coombs, adaptor, Hans-My-Hedgehog (based on "Hans mein Igel" by the brothers Grimm), Atheneum (New York, NY), 2009.

Adaptations

The Ant Bully was adapted as an animated motion picture by John A. Davis, Warner, c. 2006, and novelized by Benjamin Harper as The Ant Bully: Revenge of the Ants, by Quinlan B. Lee as The Ant Bully: The Great Ant Adventure, and by Judy Katschke as The Ant Bully, all published by Scholastic, 2006.

Sidelights

In addition to creating editorial illustrations for major periodicals, John Nickle has also established a successful career in children's-book publishing. In 1998 his illustrations for his first picture-book project, Judi Barrett's The Things That Are Most in the World, prompted a Publishers Weekly contributor to praise Nickle's "flamboyant arsenal of colors" and his creation of engaging "oddball critters" to bring to life Barrett's introduction to superlatives. "Nickle adds his own imaginative bits to the mix," wrote Carolyn Phelan in a review of the work for Booklist, the critic adding that The Things That Are Most in the World would have the greatest appeal among nonsense fans. In addition to collaborating with Barrett on a second book, Never Take a Giraffe to the Movies, and Other Things Not to Do, Nickle has also created art for a little-known Grimm brothers fairy tale adapted by Kathryn Coombs.

In addition to illustrations, Nickle also has a talent for writing, and he has created the self-illustrated story The Ant Bully, as well as TV Rex and Alphabet Explosion!: Search and Count from Alien to Zebra. In addition to being popular with young readers, The Ant Bully was adapted as an animated movie starring the voices of well-known actors Julia Roberts and Nicholas Cage. In Nickle's picture-book version, a nerdish-looking boy named Lucas responds to being bullied by a bigger boy named Sid by becoming a bully himself. Left alone to play, he spends his time using a squirt gun to terrorize the ant population in his family's yard. The tiny ants eventually get even, however: shrinking Lucas down to ant size and pulling the boy into an ant hole, they assign him the tasks of a worker ant: finding food, caring for the Queen, and battling predatory spiders. Noting that the author/illustrator "ground[s] his highly imaginative and very funny fantasy in scientific fact—if not always in scientific reality," a Horn Book reviewer also cited the inclusion of "wonderfully comic touches" within his brightly colored art. Nickle "credibly anthropomorphizes ant societies, stressing equality and cooperation," according to a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, the critic noting the detail in the author/illustrator's "fine-line acrylic illustrations."

Other original works by Nickle include TV Rex, in which a sad boy named Rex misses his Grandpa, with whom he used to watch a favorite undersea television drama. Now that the elderly man is gone, Rex watches too much television; so much so that the set ultimately breaks down. Without Grandpa to fix it, Rex realizes that the television is just a useless box; he climbs inside it, crying, and soon his tears have filled the box and transported him under the sea where a host of amazing adventures await. Comparing Nickle's illustrations to works by popular artist William Joyce, Ilene Cooper added in Booklist that the book's "sturdy pictures veer from retro to computer cartoons," and a Publishers Weekly contributor dubbed TV Rex a "fun flight of fancy" for young television addicts.

In Alphabet Explosion! Nickle pairs "fine artwork with a fanciful hunt-and-seek game" that Booklist critic Gillian Engberg predicted would appeal to both early and pre-readers. Citing the book's vocabulary-building ability, a Publishers Weekly also praised the illustrator's abecedarium, dubbing Alphabet Explosion! a "riveting read" that motivates readers to "don their thinking caps without feeling like they are being schooled."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1998, Carolyn Phelan, review of The Things That Are Most in the World, p. 234; February 1, 1999, Kathleen Squires, review of The Ant Bully, p. 982; January 1, 2001, Ilene Cooper, review of TV Rex, p. 970; October 1, 2006, Gillian Engberg, review of Alphabet Explosion!: Search and Count from Alien to Zebra, p. 55.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, July, 1998, review of The Things That Are Most in the World, p. 387; February, 1999, review of Things That Are Most in the World, p. 377; March, 2001, review of TV Rex, p. 274.

Horn Book, January, 1999, review of The Ant Bully, p. 54.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2006, review of Alphabet Explosion!, p. 849.

Publishers Weekly, January 25, 1999, review of The Ant Bully, p. 94; February 26, 2001, review of TV Rex, p. 86; August 21, 2006, review of Alphabet Explosion!, p. 67.

School Library Journal, June, 1998, Anne Knickerbocker, review of The Things That Are Most in the World, p. 94; April, 2001, Alicia Eames, review of TV Rex, p. 119; September, 2006, Suzanne Myers Harold, review of Alphabet Explosion!, p. 194.