Joan Walsh Anglund | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 3, 1926 |
| Died | March 9, 2021 (aged 95) |
Joan Walsh Anglund (January 3, 1926 – March 9, 2021) was an American poet and children's book author and illustrator. A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, her first children's books, was one of the New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books. She published more than 120 books, and as of 2014, she had sold over 45 million books worldwide.[1][2]
In 2015 a United States Postal Service stamp was issued commemorating the American author and poet Maya Angelou with the Joan Walsh Anglund quote "A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song" though the stamp apparently attributes the quote to Angelou.[3] The quote is from Anglund's book of poems A Cup of Sun (1967).[3] President Obama also wrongly attributed the sentence to Angelou during the presentation of the 2013 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal.[4]
Anglund was born on January 3 in 1926 in Hinsdale, Illinois. Her parents were Thomas and Mildred Walsh. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the American Academy of Art in the mid-1940s. She met her future husband, the actor and playwright Bob Anglund, in 1946. They married in 1947 before moving to Pasadena in California.[5]
She started writing in the 1950s after moving to New York from the Mid-West.[6]
Anglund had two children, Joy Anglund Harvey and Todd.[5]
Anglund died March 9, 2021, at age 95, of heart failure.[7][6]
The New York Times regularly reviewed Anglund's children's books, describing the narrative universe created by Anglund as reassuring and comfortable.[6]
