Ezra jack keats short biography
Ezra jack keats the trip...
Ezra Jack Keats
Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983) was a pioneer in American children’s literature. He based the lives of his multiracial characters on his childhood but added loving parents, friends and pets.
Ezra jack keats short biography
He wanted no child to be an outsider.
Ezra Jack Keats was born on March 11, 1916 in the East New York section of Brooklyn. He was the third child of Benjamin Katz and Augusta “Gussie” Podgainy, Polish Jews who came to this country to escape the aggressive antisemitism in Europe.
Ezra’s mother and his older siblings William and Mae were all artistically gifted, but early on it was clear that making art was Ezra’s special gift.
Ezra’s teachers and school librarians gave him the encouragement he needed to believe in his talent.
When he graduated from Junior High School 149 he was awarded a medal for drawing and at Thomas Jefferson High School, he won a national Scholastic Award for his painting of homeless individuals warming themselves around a fire.
These awards gave him fuel to