1945 - Prayer for a Child

The eighth book to win the Caldecott Medal was Prayer for a Child, written by Rachel Field and illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones, published in 1944 by Macmillan, which is now a part of Simon & Schuster.

The prayer in this book is written as a 22 line poem and expresses gratitude to God for everything important to a young child: food, toys, shoes, friends, family, parents, and so much more.  It is a very sweet sentiment that could be easily expressed by boy or girl.  

The prayer was written by Rachel Field for her young daughter, Hannah,  and this book was published posthumously as Field died on March 15, 1942 from pneumonia at the age of 48.  Her book, Hitty, Her First One Hundred Years, had won the Newbery Medal in 1930 and had been illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop, the first person to have won the Caldecott Medal in 1938.

Who was Elizabeth Orton Jones?

Elizabeth Orton Jones was born on June 25, 1910 in Highland Park, Illinois, 23 miles north of Chicago.  Her father was a musician and her grandfather owned a bookstore in Geneva, New York, so music and books had always been a big part of her life.

Jones attended the University of Chicago and earned a Ph.D there in 1932.  She went on to study in France at the Ecole des Beaux Arts before going on to study under French artist, Camille Liausu.  While working with Liausu, Jones began drawing children at play as a way to practice and work on drawing motion. While in Paris, she published her first book, Ragman of Paris and his Ragamuffins, in 1937.

She returned to the United States and took a job with William and Lillian Glaser, children's book publishers on Long Island who specialized in working closely with illustrators to accomplish superior results.  While there, Jones published Maminka's Children in 1940.  In 1942, she published Twig, the book most associated with Jones and which led to her being nicknamed Twig for the rest of her life.  

In 1945, Jones was on a business trip to New Hampshire where she fell in love with the town of Mason.  She decided to stay and bought a farmhouse that had been built in the 1780s.  She loved her adopted hometown so much, that Jones became dedicated to preserving the history of Mason.  She recorded and taught history as well as helping to create the Mason Historical Society and edited the Mason Bicentennial in 1968.  Jones was also a big supporter of the local children's theater, Andy's Summer Playhouse, and was well known for her work with Crocheted Mountain, a rehabilitation center for children.  

In total, Jones wrote and illustrated 7 books and illustrated 16 other books.  In 1944, Small Rain: Verses from the Bible, illustrated by Jones and edited by her mother, Jessie Orton Jones, had been a Caldecott Honor book.  

Elizabeth Orton Jones died on May 10, 2005.  On June 25 of the same year, Mason Public Library renamed their Junior Room the "Twig Room" in her honor.

The Illustrations

The prayer is published in it's entirety in the beginning of the book, but then it is broken up throughout the rest of the book with one line of the prayer on one page and the opposite page having a corresponding illustration.

The drawings are beautiful and colorful.  While reading the book and studying the illustrations, the words that popped into my mind were "soft" and "cozy", comforting images of a happy childhood. 

In her Caldecott Medal acceptance speech, Jones says "I had no little girl. The little girl closest to me was the little-girl-I-used-to-be."  The silver cup in the image above was the silver cup Jones drank her milk from as a child.  The quilt on the bed was based on the quilt her grandmother had made her.

Jones took out her own toys that she had put away in cardboard boxes and brought them to life on the pages of this book.

The picture of the little painted chair is one of my favorites.  The colors in the illustration, the sweet expression on the little girl's face, and the dimpled child's hands. 

For the line blessing family and friends, Jones tried to draw companionship, which I feel she did beautifully.  And I like that she included the cat, as our pets are often just as much a part of our family as our brothers and sisters.

And in order to portray the line"Bless other children far and near, and keep them safe and free from fear", Jones said she tried to "draw the feeling of fellowship that exists...among all children."  I enjoyed taking the time to examine the illustration and take in all the details of hats and other head dressings, faces and smiles.  This was another example of Jones' use of colors.  They blend together well in the drawing, but show so many ethnicities.  

One little detail I really liked about this book was that the first illustration was a group of what appeared to be wooden angels and those angels were carried throughout the book, adorning the first letter of each page.

While the prayer was originally written for a little girl and the illustrations are of a girl, this prayer could very easily be said by a boy as well.

While researching Prayer For A Child, I found a site that offers printables for homeschoolers to use after reading the book, but anyone who shares this book with their child could have fun with these activities.  Prayer For a Child Printables.

1945 Caldecott Honor Books

Mother Goose illustrated by Tasha Tudor

In the Forest by Marie Hall Ets

Yonie Wondernose by Marguerite de Angeli

The Christmas Anna Angel illustrated by Kate Seredy, written by Ruth Sawyer