Richard Scarry is my co-pilot, What does that mean? I have family in Cincinnati and when my children were very young, we would fly to Ohio a few times a year (we now drive). I realized early on that I didn't need to pack tons of board books and picture books for the two and a half hour flight; all I needed to occupy the attention of my three children was one of Scarry's Busy Books. Richard Scarry, the genius that he was, knew how to appeal to preschoolers and young children IN THE SAME BOOK! While my toddler would point out recognizable images and say their names like fire truck and apple (also noted in the corresponding word identifications), my five year old would giggle at the silly stories about Huckle, Bananas Gorilla, and, Mr. Fix-It. And at the same time, my seven year old would try to find all the hidden Lowly Worms and Gold Bugs on a given spread (Scarry started this hide-and-seek game long before Where's Waldo!). My seven year old would also carefully study the intricate diagrams that Scarry was known for (pre-dating David Macauley's The Way Things Work, of course). The fact that one book could appeal to the very different developmental stages of my three children continues to fascinate me.

Scarry was the Fred Astaire of the children's book world. He made what he did look easy but in reality he was greatly disciplined in regimen and worked tirelessly at his craft. I had the pleasure of meeting Scarry's agent a few years ago who let me in on a secret -- he told me that an Italian Figurative Dictionary (Duden Italiano Dizionario Figurato, Redatto dal Bibliographisches Institut di Mannheim e dall'Istituto Geografico De Agostini di Novara) was Scarry's reference bible, and that it proved a source of great inspiration in his detailing the many awesome mechanical and architercutrally-oriented illustrations of houses being built, the inner-structure of windmills, a rope and pulley plumbing system, and so on.

Although Scarry never won a Caldecott Medal, he will always rank among the highest children's book creators in my book. If you are a fan and want to know more about his genius, I recommend the biography: The Busy, Busy World of Richard Scarry by Walter Retan and Ole Risom. Coincidentally, one of my most beloved pieces of original artwork is a vignette of the letter I (a mouse with a dish of ice cream) from Scarry's Alphabet Book. Richard Scarry, my co-pilot, my hero.