Vera B. Williams is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 children's writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and illustrator

Illustrator

An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

. Her best known work, A Chair for My Mother, has won multiple awards and was featured on the children's television show Reading Rainbow

Reading Rainbow

Reading Rainbow is an American children's television series aired by PBS from June 6, 1983 until November 10, 2006 that encouraged reading among children. The award-winning public television series garnered over 200 broadcast awards, including scores of Emmy Awards, many for "Outstanding Children's...

. She was the U.S. Illustrator Nominee for the 2004 Hans Christian Andersen Award

Hans Christian Andersen Award

The Hans Christian Andersen Award, sometimes known as the "Nobel Prize for children's literature", is an international award given biennially by the International Board on Books for Young People in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature"...

.

Early life and education

Vera Baker was born January 28, 1927 in Hollywood, California. She has one sister, Naomi. As a child, her family moved to the Bronx, New York, where her father was frequently absent during her early childhood. Encouraged by their parents to explore the arts, she studied at The High School of Music & Art

The High School of Music & Art

The High School of Music & Art, informally known as "Music & Art", was a public alternative high school at 443-465 West 135th Street, New York, New York, USA that existed from 1936 through 1984, and then merged into the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing...

 and Black Mountain College

Black Mountain College

Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education, and in which John Dewey's principles of education played a major role...

 in North Carolina, where she received her BFA

Bachelor of Fine Arts

In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...

 in Graphic Art in 1949.

Marriage and children

While at Black Mountain College, she married fellow student Paul Williams. The couple divorced in 1970. Together they had three children:

• Sarah Williams
• Jennifer Williams
• Merce Williams

She has five grandchildren:

• Hudson Williams
• August Williams
• William Babcock
• Rebecca Babcock
• Clare Babcock

Career

Williams was a co-founder of the Gate Hill Cooperative Community and served as a teacher for the community from 1953-70. She taught at alternative schools in New York and Ontario throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Following her divorce, she emigrated to Canada, where she committed to becoming a children's author and illustrator. In 1975 she was invited by Remy Charlip

Remy Charlip

Abraham Remy' Charlip is an American artist, writer, choreographer, theatre director, designer and teacher.-Career:He studied art at Straubenmuller Textile High School in Manhattan and fine arts at Cooper Union in New York, graduating in 1949.In the 1960s Charlip created a unique form of...

 to illustrate Hooray For Me, which she did while living on a houseboat

Houseboat

A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. Some houseboats are not motorized, because they are usually moored, kept stationary at a fixed point and often tethered to land to provide utilities...

 in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

. She established a publishing relationship with Greenwillow Books that continues to this day. Today, Ms. Williams lives in New York City and remains active in local issues such as The House of Elder Artists and participated in the 2007 PEN World Voices

PEN World Voices

PEN World Voices: The New York Festival of International Literature was launched in 2005. PEN World Voices is a week-long literary festival in New York City. The Festival was founded by Esther Allen and Michael Roberts under then PEN President Salman Rushdie. The Festival was composed of programs,...

 literary festival.

Philosophical and political views

Ms. Williams has long supported nonviolent and nuclear disarmament causes. In 1981 she spent a month in Alderson Federal Prison Camp

Alderson Federal Prison Camp

Alderson Federal Prison Camp, also known as Federal Prison Camp, Alderson or FPC Alderson, is a Federal Bureau of Prisons minimum security prison for women in the United States in unincorporated Monroe County and Summers County in West Virginia...

 following arrest at a women's peaceful blockade of the Pentagon. She served on the executive committee of the War Resisters League

War Resisters League

The War Resisters League was formed in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I. It is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International.Many of the founders had been jailed during World War I for refusing military service...

 from 1984 to 1987.

As author

• It's a Gingerbread House (1978)
• The Great Watermelon Birthday (1980)
• Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe (1981)
• A Chair for My Mother (1982)
• Something Special for Me (1983)
• Music, Music for Everyone (1984)
• My Mother, Leah and George Sand (1986)
• Cherries and Cherry Pits (1986)
• Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea with Jennifer Williams (1988)
• "More More More" Said the Baby (1990)
• Scooter (1993)
• Lucky Song (1997)
• Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart (2001)
• A Chair for Always (2009)

As illustrator

• Hooray For Me!, Remy Charlip (1975)
• Long Walks and Intimate Talks, Grace Paley
  Grace Paley
  Grace Paley was an American-Jewish short story writer, poet, and political activist.-Biography:Grace Paley was born in the Bronx to Isaac and Manya Ridnyik Goodside, who anglicized the family name from Gutseit on immigrating from Ukraine. Her father was a doctor. The family spoke Russian and...
  
   (1991)
• Home: A Collaboration of Thirty Authors & Illustrators (1996)

Awards

• 1983: Boston Globe-Horn Book Award
  Boston Globe-Horn Book Award
  The Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards were first presented by The Boston Globe and Horn Book Magazine in 1967. They are among the most prestigious honors in the United States in the field of children’s and young adult literature...
  
  , Picture Book category, A Chair for My Mother
• 1983: Caldecott Honor, A Chair for My Mother
• 1985: Jane Addams Children's Book Award, Honor Book, Music, Music for Everyone
• 1991: Caldecott Honor, "More More More" Said the Baby
• 1994: Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Fiction category, Scooter
• 1995: Library of Congress exhibition, "Family, Friends, and Community: The Art of Vera B. Williams"
• 1998: Charlotte Zolotow Award
  Charlotte Zolotow Award
  The Charlotte Zolotow Award is an American literary award presented annually for outstanding writing in a picture book published in the United States in the preceding year. By contrast, the Caldecott Medal is for outstanding illustration in a picture book...
  
  , Lucky Song
• 2002: Jane Addams Children's Book Award, Honor Book, Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart
• 2008: Regina Medal of the Catholic Library Association; body of work