Ellen Raskin

Life

Raskin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up during the Great Depression. She was educated at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a major in fine art. She had one daughter in her first marriage, which ended in divorce.

Raskin was an accomplished graphic artist. In New York City she worked as a commercial artist for about 15 years. Among other things she designed more than 1000 dustjackets for books including the first edition of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, the 1963 Newbery Medal winner.

In 1960 she married Dennis Flanagan, editor of Scientific American.

Raskin died at the age of 56 on August 8, 1984 in New York City, the result of a connective-tissue disease.

Children's picture books

Raskin wrote and illustrated twelve picture books, published by Atheneum Books except as noted.

Nothing Ever Happens on My Block, 1967

Silly Songs and Sad, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1967

Spectacles, 1968

Ghost in a Four-Room Apartment, 1969

And It Rained, 1969

A & The, or, William T. C. Baumgarten Comes to Town, 1970

The World's Greatest Freak Show, 1971

Franklin Stein, 1972

Moe Q. McGlutch, He Smoked Too Much, Parents, 1973

Who, Said Sue, Said Whoo?, 1973

Moose, Goose & Little Nobody, 1976

Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, 1976

Young adult novels

Raskin wrote four novels, all published by E. P. Dutton.

The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), 1971

Figgs & Phantoms, 1974

The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues, 1975

The Westing Game, 1978

As illustrator

Raskin also illustrated more than twenty books by other writers.

Happy Christmas: Tales for Boys and Girls, edited by Claire H. Bishop, Ungar, 1956

A Child's Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas (1950); J. M. Dent, 1968

Mama, I Wish I Was Snow, Child You'd Be Very Cold, by Ruth Krauss, Atheneum, 1962

"Philosophy and History. The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift", ed. Raymond Klibansky and H. J. Paton, 1963 (second edition)

Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, selected by Dwight MacDonald, Crowell, 1965

We Dickinsons, by Aileen Fisher and Olive Rabe, Atheneum, 1965

The Jewish Sabbath, by Molly Cone, Crowell, 1966

Paths of Poetry: Twenty-Five Poets and Their Poems, ed. Louis Untermeyer, Delacorte, 1966

Songs of Innocence (Volumes 1 & 2), by William Blake (1789, 1794), music and illustrations by Ellen Raskin, Doubleday, 1966

D. H. Lawrence: Poems Selected for Young People, ed. William Cole, Viking, 1967

Ellen Grae, by Vera and Bill Cleaver, Lippincott, 1967

Poems of Robert Herrick, ed. Winfield T. Scott, Crowell, 1967

Probability: the Science of Chance, by Arthur G. Razzell and K. G. O. Watts, Doubleday, 1967 ‡

This Is 4: the Idea of a Number, by Razzell and Watts, Doubleday, 1967 ‡

Books: A Book to Begin On, by Susan Bartlett, Holt, 1968

Inatuk's Friend, by Suzanne Stark Morrow, Atlantic/Little, 1968

Lady Ellen Grae, by Vera and Bill Cleaver, Lippincott, 1968

A Paper Zoo: A Collection of Animal Poems by Modern American Poets, edited by Renee K. Weiss, Macmillan, 1968

Piping Down the Valleys Wild: Poetry for the Young of All Ages, edited by Nancy Larrick, Delacorte, 1968

Symmetry, by Razzell and Watts, Doubleday, 1968 ‡

We Alcotts, by Aileen Fisher and Olive Rabe, Atheneum, 1968

Circles and Curves, by Razzell and Watts, Doubleday, 1969 ‡

Come Along!, by Rebecca Caudill, Holt, 1969

Shrieks at Midnight: Macabre Poems, Eerie and Humorous, edited by Sara and John E. Brewton, Crowell, 1969

Three and the Shape of Three, by Razzell and Watts, Doubleday, 1969 ‡

Elidor, by Alan Garner (1965), Walck, 1970

Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti (1862), Dutton, 1970

‡ Raskin illustrated at least five volumes in a series of 32- and 48-page mathematics books by Arthur C. Razzell and Kenneth George Oliver Watts, which was inaugurated by Doubleday in 1964.