David Small

This article is about the author and illustrator. For the fictional Rabbi David Small, see Friday the Rabbi Slept Late.

File:David small large.jpg David Small (born February 12, 1945 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American author and illustrator. He was only 2 years old when he began drawing, health problems having kept him home for much of his childhood.

Life

David Small attended Cass Technical High School and began studying writing in college, but at age 21 switched to art. He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at Wayne State University and a master of fine arts degree at Yale University. Small taught art for many years on the college level, ran and film series, and made satirical sketches for campus newspapers. His first book, which he wrote and illustrated, Eulalie and the Hopping Head, was published in 1981.

Small earned the 1997 Caldecott Honor and The Christopher Medal for The Gardener, with Sarah Stewart, his wife, recipient of the 2007 Michigan Author Award. In 2001 he won the Caldecott Medal for So You Want to Be President?, combining political cartooning with children's book illustration. Small's drawings have appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times. In 1990, he was commissioned to paint one of the pillars in the children's room with nursery rhyme character of the Kalamazoo Public Library, in Kalamazoo Michigan.

David Small and Sarah Stewart make their home in an historic manor house in Mendon, Michigan.

Stitches

David Small's graphic memoir, Stitches, was published in September, 2009. "Stiches", the memoir, is the story of David Small's twisted childhood in Detroit. Small's childhood was full of lies ever since he was born. As a boy, Small and his brother snuck into his father's office to secretly look at his medical books and documents. While his brother was snooping through one of the medical books he wound up on a page entailing the picture of a growth on a man's neck; Small and his brother were confused of what it was but yet the image stayed in his mind. "Stiches" also shows that Small was abused physically and mentally by his mother and grandmother. He was never very happy with his family and never thought they supported him at all.Now eleven, with his parents at a yacht party, one of Small's father's coworkers at the hospital noticed a small growth on Small's neck. The apparent "cyst" was first brought into question at one of the hospitals women's auxiliary bridge club meetings at his house: when his mothers friend Mrs.Dillon points out to his mom he may have some sort of a growth on his neck. After the "cyst" growths for three more years they decide to put Small into surgery. After surgery, Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute—one of his vocal cords had been removed. He was fourteen, and had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die. His parents didn't care to tell David that he had cancer or any of the troubles he might have had due to the cancer. They let him find out on his own. This decision to let Small find out about the cancer by himself results in even more disorder in the family. Small admits to finally,for once, wanting to actually make noise and express his anger to his parents in a household that's used to being silent, but now unfortunately he can't. Small does, however, try to rebel in anyway he can, but this only gets him sent to therapy. It is here where Small meets the first person in the book he actually takes a liking to: his therapist. It is here where we learn that Small's mother, "Doesn't love him." This part is a bit unclear, but it makes a good implication that Small's mother is a sociopath. Surprisingly, these talks with his therapist actually seem to brighten his life and make him a stronger person from that point on throughout the memoir. shortly after therapy he comes home to find his mother having an affair with Mrs.Dillon it is not until later he finds out about his mothers secret life as a lesbian. At the age of 15, four and a half years later after being diagnosed with cancer, his father finally admits to the unfortunate fact that he was the cause of his own son's cancer. Small had been born with breathing difficulty. At the time, any newborn with any sort of breathing difficulty were treated with X-rays. So, Small had been treated with harmful X- rays (two to four hundred rads).Stitches tells the story of Small's journey from sickly child to cancer patient, to the troubled teen who made a risky decision to run away from his home life at sixteen—with nothing more than to pursue his dream of becoming an artist.

Stitches has been reviewed by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and is a #1 New York Times Best Seller. It was named one of the ten best books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly[2] and Amazon.com[3]. It was also a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for Young People's Literature [4]. Small, David. Stitches: a memoir--. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. Print.

Bibliography

Written and Illustrated by David Small

Stitches by David Small, W.W. Norton & Company, 2009

Eulalie and the Hopping Head by David Small MacMillan 1982, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2001 A "School Library Journal" Best Book of the Year.

Imogene's Antlers by David Small Crown 1985

Ruby Mae Has Something to Say by David Small Crown 1992

Paper John by David Small Farrar Straus Giroux 1987

Hoover's Bride by David Small Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

George Washington's Cows by David Small Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1997

Fenwick's Suit by David Small Farrar Straus Giroux 1996

Written by Sarah Stewart and Illustrated by David Small

The Money Tree by Sarah Stewart, David Small (Illustrator) Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1994

The Library by Sarah Stewart, David Small (Illustrator) Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1995

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart, David Small (Illustrator) Trumpet Club, New York 1998 Caldecott Honor Award

The Friend by Sarah Stewart, David Small (Illustrator) Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2004

The Journey by Sarah Stewart, David Small (Illustrator) Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2001 A "Publishers Weekly" and "School Library Journal" Best Book of the Year.

Illustrated by David Small

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, David Small (Illustrator), Antheum, 2008

So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George, David Small (Illustrator) Philomel 2000 Year 2000 Notable Books by the New York Times, one of the Best Children's Books 2000 by Publishers Weekly, winner of the 2001 Caldecott Medal.

So You Want to Be an Inventor? by Judith St George, David Small (Illustrator)

So You Want to Be an Explorer? by Judith St George, David Small (Illustrator) Philomel 2005

Once Upon a Banana by Jennifer Armstrong, David Small (Illustrator)

When Dinosaurs came with Everything by Elise Broach, David Small (Illustrator) Athenium

The Christmas Crocodile by Bonnie Becker, David Small (Illustrator) Simon & Schuster, New York 1998

The Essential Worldwide Monster Guide by Linda Ashman, David Small (Illustrator) Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2003

My Senator and Me: A Dog's Eye View of Washington, D.C. by Edward Moore Kennedy, David Small (Illustrator) Scholastic Inc, 2006

Mouse & His Child by Russell Hoban, David Small (Illustrator) Arthur A. Levine Book 2001

Huckabuck Family: And How They Raised Popcorn in Nebraska and Quit and Came Back by Carl Sandburg, David Small (Illustrator) Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1999

Company's Coming by Arthur Yorinks, David Small (Illustrator) Knopf Books for Young Readers 1988

Petey's Bedtime Story by Beverly Cleary, David Small (Illustrator) HarperCollins Publishers 1993

Company's Going by Arthur Yorinks, David Small (Illustrator) Hyperion Books 2001

A Surfeit of Similes by Norton Juster, David Small (Illustrator) William Morrow & Company, New York 1989

That book woman by Heather Henson, David Small (Illustrator) Atheneum, 2008

External links

• DavidSmallBooks.com