Lillian Hoban (May 18, 1925 – July 17, 1998) was an American illustrator and children's writer best known for picture books created with her husband Russell Hoban. According to OCLC, she has published 326 works in 1,401 publications in 11 languages.
Lillian Hoban was born in Philadelphia and was the youngest of three sisters. She attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls. At age 14, she started classes at the Graphic Sketch Club where she met her husband and collaborator, Russell Hoban. She won a scholarship to the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, where she majored in Illustration. After getting married and settling in New York City, Hoban gave up art to study dance at the Hanya Holm School. She studied dance for ten years.
Hoban danced professionally and choreographed the musical television program called Tropical Holiday that aired live on Saturday nights when, according to Hoban, television was in its infancy. She also taught dance for a number of years. She dedicated herself to dancing until the birth of her second child, Abrom (Brom).
Collaboration with Russell Hoban
Her earliest collaboration was with her husband Russell in the 1960s and early 1970s. The centerpiece of this work was the Frances series written by Russell. The character of Frances was inspired by the Hobans' next door neighbors in Norwalk whose daughter found many ways of putting off her bedtime.
The first book in the series, Bedtime for Frances, was illustrated by Garth Williams. Hoban, who illustrated his first book by Harper himself, sought another illustrator for Frances because, as he said, he could not do soft and cuddly. Ursula Nordstrom suggested Williams, whose soft and furry animals seemed the perfect fit. Russell originally depicted Frances as a vole, but Williams suggested a badger. Nordstrom agreed, persuading Russell that it would be too difficult to depict a likeable vole for children. The original illustrations of Frances as a vole can be found in the Lillian Hoban Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
Lillian took over as illustrator with the second book in the series, A Baby Sister for Frances, and illustrated the rest. She was faithful to the badger image first established by Garth Williams but brought her own style and charm to the badger family. Hoban used expressive body postures and facial gestures to capture the emotions of the characters and give them an authentic, true to life quality. The Hobans used their eldest daughter Phoebe as the model for Frances.
Themes and popularity of the Frances series
The theme that runs through all of the Frances books, and much of the Hobans' collaboration, is that problems can be resolved with just a little bit of thought and creativity. The feeling of a close, supportive, and loving family that is depicted through the illustrations and stories, according to Russell, is one of the reasons that the books have met with such widespread approval of readers and professionals. Another reason the author cites for the popularity of the series is that, beginning with the second Frances book, the title character creates and sings songs to express her emotions. Tamar Mays, senior editor of Harper Collins Children's book division, cites the loving kindness of the parents, the universal childhood moments, and the strong individuality and creative imagination of the character of Frances as reasons why the books have remained so popular.
The strong sales of A Bargain for Frances in the I-Can-Read format, led to the republishing of many of the rest of the titles originally published as picture books in this easy to read format: Bread and Jam for Frances (2008), Best Friends for Frances (2009), A Baby Sister for Frances (2011) and A Birthday for Frances (2012). Both Russell and his daughter Phoebe helped in this conversion.
In all, the Hobans collaborated on at least twenty-seven children's books between 1964 and 1972. Other standouts in the Lillian and Russell collaboration include the Brute Family books: The Little Brute Family (1966) and The Stone Doll of Sister Brute (1968). The books tell the humorous and heartwarming tale of a mean-spirited family that discovers the contagiousness of a good feeling and niceness. Both books were reprinted as Dell paperbacks and The Little Brute Family was republished by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2002. Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, based on the short story The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry told the story Emmett Otter and his widowed mother who enter a talent contest to earn money to buy each other Christmas gifts. The book won the Christopher Award in 1972. In 1977 The Jim Henson Company produced the television film adaptation and a musical stage adaption in 2008. Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas marked the Hobans' final collaborative effort.
Lillian Hoban went on to find great success as an author and illustrator in the "I-Can-Read" books issued by Harper with early guidance from her long-time editor at Harper & Row, Ursula Nordstrom. Hoban explains that she did not set out to write an Easy Reader but simply wrote a story for children. Nordstrom loved the manuscript and fit it into the standard I-Can-Read format without changing a word. The Arthur series soon became wildly popular among children. Arthur the chimpanzee and his little sister Violet, explore many of the same trials and tribulations of childhood that she and her husband first explored with the Frances series. Hoban's first book in the series, Arthur's Christmas Cookies (1972), came from listening to her children baking cookies in the kitchen. Her son, Brom, devised a scheme to bake clay cookies, decorate them, and sell them for ornaments around the neighborhood to make money to buy Christmas gifts. In the book, Arthur makes clay cookies by mistake and then decides to make ornaments. Arthur's Honey Bear (1974) was also inspired by Hoban's experience with her own children who, along with the neighborhood kids, began selling their toys to each other. The activity led to a 2:00 am phone call from a concerned father who offered fifty dollars for Scooby-Doo because his son could not sleep without his security toy. Other popular titles written by Lillian Hoban in the I-Can-Read format include the Tilly the Mole and Mr. Pig books.
Hoban illustrated the Riverside Kids series written by Johanna Hurwitz that explores growing up in an apartment in the heart of New York City. These titles include Busybody Nora, Superduper Teddy, Rip-Roaring Russell, and Elisa In The Middle. The last Riverside Kids book she illustrated was Ever-Clever Elisa published in 1997.
Hoban was especially fond of the First Grade Friends series of books that she illustrated for Miriam Cohen. The series follows an entire classroom from pre-school to second grade. The first book in the series, Will I Have a Friend was published in 1967. Other titles in this series include Best Friends, The New Teacher, Tough Jim, and Starring First Grade. The last book in the series, and the only book that takes place in 2nd grade, was titled The Real Skin Monster Mask, and was published in 1990.
Hoban briefly ventured into juvenile fiction with the publication of her one and only young adult novel, I Met a Traveler, in 1977. Inspired by a young Jewish girl she met while visiting Israel, the novel tells the story of an eleven-year-old girl from Connecticut taken to Jerusalem by her eccentric mother. Hoban had previously illustrated three other stories for older children, Mitchell F. Jayne's The Forest in the Wind (1966), Meindert Dejong's The Easter Cat (1971) and Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child (1967), the latter widely considered to be a classic.
The 1980s marked Hoban's most productive period as she illustrated over forty books, the most of any decade. This included four more Arthur books, five books in the Riverside Kids series and eleven books authored by Miriam Cohen.
Hoban kicked off this very dynamic period with a small picture book entitled Harry's Song, her ode to the arts. Picasso once said, "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." The book affirms that quote. It tells the story of Harry Rabbit who sits on a rock and sings his songs of summer under the darkening shadow of a fall day while the animals around him prepare for winter. One by one, the animals ridicule him for not helping his family in the practical duties of preparing for winter. The field mice call him a dreamer and dumb. Mr. Chipmunk calls him a funny little bunny. The brown bat calls him a bothersome, bumbling bunny and his mother's calls for him to come home as it is getting late. Harry continues his song under the thin moon. When Harry finally succumbs to his mother's pleadings and arrives at his house, his three brothers scold him for not bringing anything home. Harry corrects them. "Yes I have," he says and sings his song to the delight of his loving mother who exclaims, "How lovely! You've brought home the perfect song of a summer day to carry us through the winter. You are a honey of a bunny!"