Richard Scarry
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Richard McClure Scarry (June 5, 1919 – April 30 1994), last name pronounced like "scary", was an enormously popular children's author and illustrator who published over 300 books with total sales of 300 million worldwide.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, where his parents ran a shop. The Scarry family enjoyed a comfortable life even during the time of the Great Depression. Following high school graduation, Scarry enrolled in a business college but soon dropped out, finding it not to his liking. He then studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he remained until being drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II.
Following the war, Scarry worked for the art departments of various magazines before making a career breakthrough in 1949 with Little Golden Books. In 1955, he designed the character Smokey Bear for Little Golden Books. His most famous series of books was about Busytown.
Scarry's characters are almost always anthropomorphic animals. Occasionally this leads to the irony of portraying animals as farmers, tending livestock, including the infamous example of a pig portrayed as a butcher, selling ham and frankfurters behind a counter. Using animals in place of humans allowed Scarry to avoid giving the characters specific racial or ethnic traits, which may have helped broaden their appeal. His books have been popular with children throughout the world.
In the eighties and nineties, many of his "Best Ever" series of books were converted into very popular animated videos, still available on DVD on Amazon.com and elsewhere.
Titles reprinted in recent years have been significantly edited-down from their original versions.
New titles continue to be printed under his name long after his death, but are of generally inferior quality when compared to his work.
His titles include the following:
- Best Word Book Ever (ISBN 0307155102)
- Busy, Busy World (ISBN 0307655393)
- Busy, Busy Town (ISBN 0307168034)
- Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (ISBN 0307157857)
- Please and Thank You Book (ISBN 0394826817)
- Tinker and Tanker (ISBN 0385060106)
- What Do People Do All Day? (ISBN 0394818237)
In 1972, Scarry bought a chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. Here he founded his studio where he spent most of the day (from about 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) writing and illustrating his books. His studio contained a single desk, lamp and chair. His wife, Patricia, was not to bother him except for his hour break for lunch.
His wife Patricia Scarry, originally Patricia Murphy, was a writer of children's textbooks, who met Richard during collaboration when he was a textbook illustrator. She is credited with writing many of the stories in his subsequent children's books, such as "Good Night, Little Bear", "The Bunny Book", and "The Fishing Cat".
His son, Richard Scarry Jr., is also an illustrator, sometimes working under his nickname, Huck Scarry, sometimes working in his father's style as "Richard Scarry". Huck lives in Vienna, Austria; socialite Olympia Scarry is his daughter.