Adrienne Adams


Adrienne Adams was a children's book illustrator as well as an artist and author of children's books. She won two Caldecott Honors and in 1973 she was awarded the Rutgers Award for overall contributions to children’s literature. In 1977, she won a University of Southern Mississippi Medallion.

Life and career

She was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and grew up in Oklahoma. She obtained a B.A. at Stephens College and then attended the University of Missouri. She also was awarded the University of Southern Mississippi's Medallion in 1977.
She moved to New York in 1929 to study at the American School of Design and until 1949 she was a free-lance designer of displays, murals, textiles, greeting cards, etc. She married children's book writer John Lonzo Anderson in 1935 and in 1942 illustrated one of his books, Bag of Smoke, to begin her career as an illustrator. She became a full-time illustrator in 1952, and all told she illustrated more than 30 books, ranging from contemporary authors like Rumer Godden, Irwin Shapiro and Aileen Fisher to the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. Adams also wrote six children books of her own as well as self-illustrated these books.

Selected bibliography