Jon Klassen

Personal life

Klassen was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1981 and grew up in Niagara Falls and Toronto, Ontario. He studied animation at Sheridan College, graduated in 2005, and moved to Los Angeles.

That year he made an animated short with Daniel Rodrigues, An Eye for Annai. He worked on animation of the feature films Kung Fu Panda (2008) and Coraline (2009) and he was art director for the 2009 animated music video of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" by U2.

Klassen told Illustration Mundo at the end of 2008, "I work at an animation studio right now on things that won't come out for years and years. ...  it can sometimes feel like the equivalent of emptying a glass of water into a lake."

Career

In 2010, Klassen achieved international recognition when he was awarded the Governor General's Award for English-language children's illustration for his work on the picture book Cats' Night Out, written by Carolyn Stutson. He also illustrated The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood, the first novel in a HarperCollins series called The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place along with the second and third, and the first edition hardcover of the fourth novel in the series.

His first solo picture book was I Want My Hat Back, published by Candlewick Press in September 2011. It features a bear looking for his hat, who finally and off-page eats the rabbit who stole it. The New York Times Book Review named it one of the "10 Best Illustrated Children's Books for 2011". The book was published in September by Candlewick Press. Klassen said of the ending, which has been called a "subversive risk", that "there was no other way for it to end". It achieved considerable commercial success, and even became an internet meme when people started "posting their own versions of the story". Pamela Paul praised the book in review for The New York Times: "it is a wonderful and astonishing thing, the kind of book that makes child laugh and adult chuckle, and both smile in appreciation ... [it is] a charmingly wicked little book and the debut of a promising writer-illustrator talent." According to the Chicago Tribune, "the joy of this book lies in figuring out the explicit plot from the implicit details in the pictures." There has been some discussion of the ending, however: is it appropriate in a children's book that one character kills another without repercussion? A bookseller, who "need[ed] to go on record as saying I LOVE this book", reported that some customers love it until they turn the last pages. It was a runner-up for the American Geisel Award (books for beginning readers) and made the Greenaway shortlist.

Klassen modified the story in a companion book one year later, This Is Not My Hat (Candlewick, 2012). It features a little fish who steals and wears the hat of a big fish, whom the little one evades until the last pages. Finally the big fish swims back into the book, wearing the hat, with no sign of the thief. This one won the Caldecott and Greenaway Medals, from the American and British professional librarians respectively. The Caldecott annually recognizes the illustrator of the previous year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". According to the award committee, "With minute changes in eyes and the slightest displacement of seagrass, Klassen's masterful illustrations tell the story the narrator doesn't know." The Greenaway recognizes "distinguished illustration in a book for children", not necessarily a picture book. According to the British judges, "The format and layout work perfectly to convey the underwater location with the movement of the action flowing with the water from left to right. ... The juxtaposition of text and image works with perfect comic timing. Amazing expression is conveyed by the eyes and dramatic tension by little bubbles." The Greenaway is paired in a London announcement and presentation ceremony with the Carnegie Medal for children's literature, which recognized a controversially grim young-adult novel in 2014. According to the press release, "both winners independently argued that children benefit from stories without happy endings." Klassen said in his acceptance speech, "Making a book, you're kind of going out on a limb in the belief that what you think of as a satisfying story is the same as what other people think of as a satisfying story. This doesn't mean everything in the story turns out alright for everybody, but you, as a storyteller, try and make sure it ends the way the story should end."

Klassen illustrated The Dark (2013), written by Lemony Snicket, which made the Greenaway Medal shortlist of eight books alongside This Is Not My Hat.He teamed up with Mac Barnett again in 2014, on a picture book published by Candlewick, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole.

Publications

Awards