Peter Sís
Author of The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain
About the Author
Peter Sis was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1949 and attended the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague and the Royal College of Art in London. He began his career as a filmmaker and won the Golden Bear Award at the 1980 West Berlin Film Festival for an animated short. He has also won the Grand Prix show more Toronto and the Cine Golden Eagle Award, and in 1983 collaborated with Bob Dylan on You Got to Serve Somebody. His film work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1982 Sis was sent to Los Angeles to produce a film for the 1984 Winter Olympics. But the film project was canceled when Czechoslovakia and the entire Eastern bloc decided to boycott the Olympics. Ordered by his government to return home, Sis decided to stay in the United States and was granted asylum. Sis then met Maurice Sendak who introduced him to children's books, and he moved to New York City in 1984 to begin a career in children's literature. Sís earned quick acclaim with the publication of the 1986 Newbery Medal Winner, The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleishman, for which he did the illustrations. Sis is a five-time winner of The New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year.. Komodo! and A Small Tall Tale from the Far Far North were each named a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book, and he has won a Society of Illustrators Gold Medal for Komodo! and a Silver Medal for The Three Golden Keys. Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei was a 1997 Caldecott Honor Book, as was Tibet Through the Red Box. Sis has also received a MacArthur Fellowship Sis' editorial illustrations have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, and many other magazines in the United States and abroad. He has published nearly 1,000 drawings in The New York Times Book Review. He has designed many book jackets and posters, including, in 1984, the famous poster for Milos Forman's Academy Award-winning motion picture Amadeus. He has also completed a mural for the Washington/Baltimore Airport, a poster for the New York City subway system, and a stage set for the Joffrey Ballet. His work has been exhibited in Prague, London, Zurich, Hamburg, Los Angeles, and New York in both group and one-man shows. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Matěj Baťha
Works by Peter Sís
Ballerina 1 copy
el gos de malenka 1 copy
Madlenka 1 copy
Associated Works
Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants (2004) — Cover artist — 1,254 copies
The Art of Reading: Forty Illustrators Celebrate RIF's 40th Anniversary (2005) — Contributor — 242 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Sís, Peter
- Birthdate
- 1949-05-11
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
Czechoslovakia (birth) - Birthplace
- Brno, Czech Republic
- Places of residence
- Brno, Czech Republic (birth)
Prague, Czech Republic
London, England, UK
New York, New York, USA - Education
- Royal College of Art
- Occupations
- writer
Illustrator
filmmaker - Awards and honors
- Golden Bear Award (1980 West Berlin Film Festival)
Grand Prix Toronto
Cine Golden Eagle Award
MacArthur Fellowship (2003)
May Hill Arbuthnot Lecturer (2011)
Hans Christian Andersen Award (2012) - Short biography
- Peter Sís is an internationally acclaimed illustrator, author, and filmmaker. Born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1949, he began his film career by winning the Golden Bear Award at the 1980 West Berlin Film Festival for an animated short. His film work is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He turned to publishing in 1984 and quickly became one of the leading artists in the field. With more than twenty books to his credit and almost as many honors, Peter is a seven-time winner of The New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year. Most recently, in 2007, he published The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain, which was awarded the Robert F. Sibert Medal and was also named a Caldecott Honor Book. Peter Sís was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2003. He lives in the New York City area with his wife and children.
Members
Reviews
I think this one falls in the category of “children’s books that aren’t actually written for children” - it assumes a lot of prior knowledge of the Cold War that most kids won’t have, the vocabulary would be frustrating to many kids, and it is very ideologically heavy-handed. That said, there definitely are history enthusiasts among our young readers that would be familiar enough with the subject matter to pick up what Sis is trying to do with this story, so I’d recommend it to that subgroup, but don’t have this be their intro to the Cold War.… (more)
Beautiful, appropriately medieval, both spare and maximalist. Makes me want to read the original next.
In explaining why he wrote this book, award winning author and illustrator Peter Sis said, "I was always looking up the celebrated adventures, explorers, inventors, and dreamers. But I had not paid enough attention to the reluctant and quiet heroes. Here was a man who would see something wrong and do something to correct it, but who never claimed to be a hero." How lucky we are that Sis learned of Nicholas Winston's story and the children he helped like Vera Gissing. This inspirational story provides a different look into WWII. It is also a timely topic, with refugees fleeing conflict today, and provokes discussion of this issue with young readers and adults.… (more)
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Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 45
- Also by
- 39
- Members
- 7,768
- Popularity
- #3,140
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 432
- ISBNs
- 230
- Languages
- 17
- Favorited
- 5
Awards: Caldecott Medal/Honor, 2008. 2007 New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year. 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year, winner of the 2008 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction, and a nominee for the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Kids.