Reviewing David McKee's Work Trajectory
for the Hans Christian Andersen Award's shadowing in 2021
McKee at the Montreuil Book Festival in 2011 from David McKee - Wikipedia
Writer's Note:
I wrote this article with my dear friend, Noor Fatima, to help the jury at the Hans Christian Andersen Award (HCA) 2021 with their massive writer/illustrator research.
The award is one of the most prestigious international prizes for children's book creators, being granted once a year to a living writer and a living illustrator, who have made "lasting contribution to children's literature". Bearing such an honor and pride, the HCA award is even regarded as "the Nobel Prize for children's literature".
The HCA Awards
Giving that there are many nominated writers/illustrators each year, it can be challenging to get to know each of them in detail, let alone evaluating their life-time contribution. How can you determine what kind of contribution one has made and whether it has created a lasting effect? As one of the jury members at IBBY, our professor assigned the task to us to study each nominee's works and write a comprehensive report of them in a semi-academic book review style.
Upon re-writing this article, I came across the news that David has recently passed away in April 2022. I was shocked. His works have been in the hearts of many and, I believe, will remain the same for generations in the spirit of inclusivity and rebellious childhood.
Special thanks to our friend, Katja Schreiber, who worked so hard as our proofreader and editor.
Hope you enjoy the review.
McKee at the Happy 30 Birthday Elmer event in 2020 from Elmer's official site
DAVID MCKEE: Colourful Dreams of Inclusive Society
Starting off as a comic artist for newspapers, David McKee (1935 – present) has become a renowned writer/illustrator of children’s literature in the UK and worldwide. McKee has produced multitudinous literary works for children varying from board books, picturebooks, and comics (e.g., King Rollo series (1979-2001)), to illustrated books (e.g., Mr Benn series (1967-2001)) and two famous children’s animations, Mr Benn (1971-1972) and King Rollo (1980).
One of McKee's famous characters. King Rollo, a king who is a child at heart.
McKee’s illustrations are characterised by sketchy cartoonish strokes, vibrant colour combinations, and playful visual narratives, which boast both his artistic mastery and creativity to engage children in reading and discussing the world. In books like the Mr Benn and Elmer series, the portrayals of foiled characters with diverse personalities celebrate individuality and inclusive society, while background characters who go about in Charlotte’s Piggy Bank (1996) and sometimes involve in unusual activities (e.g., carrying sculptures around the town) in I Hate My Teddy Bear (1983) offer numerous side-stories for children to talk about during shared reading, which can boost their communication skills (Clemens & Kegel, 2021) and reading confidence (Isaki & Harmon, 2015).
A spread from Elmer (1968), showing elephants of different colours, patterns, and personalities, the representation of diversity and inclusivity.
Another key characteristic of McKee’s works is humour, even when communicating serious topics like wars, death, and other kinds of dangers to kids. For example, in Tusk Tusk (1978), white and black elephants wage wars using their trunks as canons and guns; in The Two Monsters (1985), two clumsy beasts shoot rocks and ridiculous insults at each other; while in The Sad Story of Veronica (1987) and Not Now, Bernard (1980), the scenes where the two children are eaten up (representing the harm of overconfidence and parents’ negligence) are narrated with brief and absurd descriptions. As humour helps people contemplate serious content in a light-hearted manner (Martin & Ford, 2018; Zembylas, 2018), these crafty understatements and amusing disapprovals/warnings of violence not only make reading surprising and enjoyable, but also include children in conversations about topics that are usually kept away from them, thereby empowering them to participate in “adult” discussions and preparing them for the beautiful, yet problem-ridden world (Gubar, 2013).
One of my favourite McKee books, The Sad Story of Veronica. An extraordinary story with a dark funny twist.
Regarding children’s empowerment, many of McKee’s works also support children in establishing an equal status to adults by facilitating their independent reading from early ages. Books such as King Rollo, Not Now, Bernard, and Prince Peter and the Teddy Bear (1997) use comic panels that show slightly different actions in each frame (Nel, 2012; Nodelman, 2012) to help preliterate readers follow the story through pictures instead of solely relying on text or read-aloud. The freedom from adults’ intervention can build up children’s confidence around books and self-determination to learn (Todres & Higinbotham, 2016). The depiction of King Rollo as a grown-up with children’s problems (e.g., being unable to tie shoelaces, etc.) even subtly denies adults’ superiority and gives children authority and confidence to figure things out independent
A spread from King Rollo and Santa’s Beard (Danish version),
one of the books in King Rollo series, illustrated in comic-like panels with slightly different images in them.
Alongside promoting children’s agency and freedom, McKee’s works also encourage self-exploration and optimal identity building. From his first book Two Can Toucan (1964) to the Elmer series, there is an extensive focus on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which covers the process of acquiring and applying knowledge to develop healthy identities and relationships, manage emotions, foster empathy for others, and make responsible decisions (Woolf, 2020). In Two Can Toucan, a nameless bird goes on a self-discovery adventure where he finds out about his extraordinary abilities, strengths, and name. Similarly, the Elmer series focuses on teamwork, empathy, self-confidence, decision making, establishing relationships, and a sense of community through the presentation of elephants with unusual multiple colours and their acceptance in the community. As growing migration and children’s exposure to unmediated information through different technologies have increased disorientation regarding identity and emotional instability amongst children, there is a broad consensus that education and literature should develop social and emotional competencies alongside academic competencies (Weissberg et al., 2015).
Besides developing children’s socio-emotional competencies, McKee also vocalizes their emotional needs. For example, in Prince Peter and the Teddy Bear, King and Queen keep offering Prince Peter expensive gifts which they like, but ignore his small wish to get just a teddy bear to play with. Similarly, Not Now, Bernard portrays parents who fulfill all their child’s physical needs but do not bother to listen to him, resulting in him being devoured by a monster. The interpretation of this narrative can vary; for instance, one may interpret the monster as symbolising Bernard’s anger at not getting the attention he desires. Narratives that open to various interpretations like this also appear in many of McKee’s writings such as King Rollo, Mr Benn, The Conquerors (2004), and Charlotte’s Piggybank.
Though McKee is known as a children’s author, some of his works are designed to address cross-generational audiences. For instance, the Mr Benn series tells a story of an adult protagonist adopting different roles (e.g., hunter, knight, cook) and going on fantasy adventures, which are meant by the author to provide “an escape from the routine” for everyone (Brown, 2017). Therefore, McKee can be considered as a ‘crossover author’ who writes for a dual audience, children and adults (Beckett, 2014, p. 4). In this way his writing facilitates quality family time through enjoyable shared-reading activities.
Despite all the merits in McKee’s works, there are some concerns regarding his presentation of colonialism and imperialism. The Conquerors advises readers to secure peace by welcoming colonisers and exchanging culture with them instead of resisting, while in the Cowboy episode of the Mr Benn TV show, Native Americans with stereotypical portrayals are shown to happily play hide and seek with cowboys. Although both works express hope for peace, exploitation that colonialism historically brought is left out and thus dangerously understated.
A spread from The Conquerors (Danish version) showing the colonised welcoming the colonisers with local games, songs and stories.
In sum, there is no doubt that McKee has substantially contributed to children’s literature through his innovative and creative use of colours and formats, aesthetical graphics, and the inclusion of pressing themes and characteristics that support reading, i.e., multiple meanings of narratives and crossover writing style. Powerful imaginations for acceptance and peace are vivid in his works, however, his depictions of social injustice and inequality are still undeniably lacking and largely based on a privileged stance.
References
Primary sources
McKee, D. (1968-2019) Elmer series. Andersen Press.
McKee, D. (1978) Tusk Tusk. Kane/Miller Book.
McKee, D. (1980) Not Now, Bernard. Andersen Press.
McKee, D. (1985) The Two Monsters. Andersen Press.
McKee, D. (2004) The Conquerors. Andersen Press.
McKee, D. (1979-2001) King Rollo series. Andersen Presis.
McKee, D. (1967-2001) Mr Benn series. Andersen Press.
McKee, D. (1987) The Sad Story of Veronica. Andersen Press.
McKee, D. (1997) Prince Peter and the Teddy Bear. Farrar Straus & Giroux.
McKee, D. (1964) Two Can Toucan. Andersen Press.
McKee, D. (1983) I Hate My Teddy Bear. Andersen Press.
Juster, C. [Producer] (1971-1972) Mr Benn [TV show]. BBC.
McKee, D. King Rollo (1980) King Rollo Films.
Secondary sources
Beckett, S. L. (2014). Transcending boundaries: writing for a dual audience of children and adults. London: Routledge.
Brown, M. (2017, August 3). Cult cartoon star Mr Benn on brink of film stardom as he turns 50. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/aug/03/cult-cartoon-star-mr-benn-film-stardom-turns-50
Clemens, L. F., & Kegel, C. A. T. (2021) Unique contribution of shared book reading on adult-child language interaction. Journal of Child Language, 48(2), 373-386. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000920000331
Gubar, M. (2013) Risky Business: Talking about Children in Children’s Literature Criticism. Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 38(4), 450-457. https://doi.org/10.1353/chq.2013.0048
Isaki, E., & Harmon, M. T. (2015) Children and Adults Reading Interactively: The Social Benefits of an Exploratory Intergenerational Program. Communication disorders quarterly, 36(2), 90-101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525740114529154
Martin, R. A., & Ford, T. E. (2018) The Psychology of Humor: an Integrative Approach (Second ed.). Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier. https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/book/9780128121436/the-psychology-of-humor
Nel, P. (2012) Same Genus, Different Species?: Comics and Picture Books. Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 37(4), 445-453.
Nodelman, P. (2012) Picture Book Guy Looks at Comics: Structural Differences in Two Kinds of Visual Narrative. Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 37(4), 436-444.
Todres, J., & Higinbotham, S. (2016) Participation Rights and the Voice of Child. In Human rights in children's literature: imagination and the narrative of law (pp. 33-57). Oxford University Press.
Zembylas, M. (2018) Holocaust Laughter and Edgar Hilsenrath’s The Nazi and the Barber: Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Laughter and Humor in Holocaust Education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-018-9599-2
Weissberg, R., Durlak, J. A., & Domitrovich, C. (2015) (PDF) Social and emotional learning: Past, present, and future. Retrieved from ResearchGate website: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302991262_Social_and_emotional_learning_Past_present_and_future
Woolf, N. (2020) CASEL Releases New Definition of SEL: What You Need to Know. Retrieved from https://www.panoramaed.com/blog/casel-new-definition-of-sel-what-you-need-to-know