Susan Roth

New York City, New York, United States

Armed with only a camera, scissors, paste, tape, and tweezers, Susan L. Roth has gained renown as an artist specializing in cut and torn paper collages as well as woodcuts. Combining her highly textured, mixed-media art with detailed research and original stories, she has created a niche for herself, captivating young children with both nonfiction and fictional books that include the popular counting book My Love for You as well as Cinnamon's Day Out: A Gerbil Adventure, Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah, Happy Birthday Mr. Kang, Hard Hat Area, and Do Re Mi: If You Can Read Music, Thank Guido d'Arezzo. As an illustrator, Roth frequently works on texts by other writers. Among these titles is the award-winning Leon's Story, the autobiography of school custodian Leon Walter Tillage, who Roth was introduced to by her twelve-year-old daughter. A quiet but direct account of a black man whose life experiences included growing up amid racism and the predations of the Ku Klux Klan as the son of poor Southern sharecroppers. Roth's first self-illustrated picture books were written in collaboration with Ruth Phang. The first of these, Patchwork Tales, features woodcut art shaded in tones of red, yellow, blue, and green that brings to life the stories Grandma tells her young granddaughter at bedtime. The book includes instructions on how to make a quilt. In The Story of Light Roth retells a Pourquoi tale based on a Cherokee myth. The story describes how, when the larger creatures Possum and Buzzard fail to bring light to Earth, it is up to tiny Spider—called "too small," "too old," and "a woman"—to complete the job. Roth brings to life traditional folk tales in several other books, among them The Biggest Frog in Australia, in which she retells a tall tale about a frog that drinks all the water on the continent. In How Thunder and Lightning Came to Be: A Choctaw Legend she illustrates a story from Native American mythology, while How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves explains, in mythical terms, how a rainbow forms. Roth's illustrations for The Great Ball Game: A Muskogee Story bring to life a stickball game between animals with wings and animals with teeth. Drawing from the Christian faith, Brave Martha and the Dragon depicts how St. Martha, after seeing her brother Lazarus rise from the dead, voyages to France to tame a dragon that is frightening villagers. Roth turns her attention to slightly older children in her fictionalized picture-book biographies Marco Polo: His Notebooks, Buddha, and Do Re Mi. Formatted as a series of fictional journal entries dictated by the explorer to a writer, the book follows Polo's trek through Jerusalem, Iran, and Afghanistan. In Buddha, Roth recounts the transformation of Siddhartha into Buddha, while Do Re Mi focuses on the medieval Italian monk who developed the first musical notation system. The book, written in collaboration with Maestro Angelo Maffucci, was a special labor of love for Roth. In addition to being adapted as a musical composition by Victoria Bond and staged by Mafucci's Children's Choir of Arezzo, Italy, in 2006, Do Re Mi was presented by Roth to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican the following year. While many of Roth's books include factual information, some keep all the focus on fun. Break, Thump, Bump!: A Very Spooky Mystery finds three children and a dog bumping around in the dark while attempting to discover the sources of some odd sounds, while Cinnamon's Day Out finds a frisky gerbil taking a holiday in the house. Far more weighty rodents take to the pages of Great Big Guinea Pigs, which couches facts about the rampages of prehistoric Venezuelan guinea pigs within a fictional bedtime story. Each book project is a unique work in which she adapts her collages to suit the needs of the particular story. For example, in Cinnamon's Day Out, wood shavings, fluff, and corrugated paper can all be found in the mixed-media collages that accompany the text, providing children with an engaging but safely vicarious adventure. In Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah she incorporates the lace and nuts evocative of a special holiday, and a close look at the illustrations of Do Re Mi reveal sheet music, foil, and handmade papers from throughout the world.

Susan L. Roth Edit Profile

author

Background

Susan Roth was born in New York City, New York, United States.

Education

Susan received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mills College in 1965. Three years later she got a Master of Arts degree.

Career

Armed with only a camera, scissors, paste, tape, and tweezers, Susan L. Roth has gained renown as an artist specializing in cut and torn paper collages as well as woodcuts. Combining her highly textured, mixed-media art with detailed research and original stories, she has created a niche for herself, captivating young children with both nonfiction and fictional books that include the popular counting book My Love for You as well as Cinnamon's Day Out: A Gerbil Adventure, Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah, Happy Birthday Mr. Kang, Hard Hat Area, and Do Re Mi: If You Can Read Music, Thank Guido d'Arezzo.

As an illustrator, Roth frequently works on texts by other writers. Among these titles is the award-winning Leon's Story, the autobiography of school custodian Leon Walter Tillage, who Roth was introduced to by her twelve-year-old daughter. A quiet but direct account of a black man whose life experiences included growing up amid racism and the predations of the Ku Klux Klan as the son of poor Southern sharecroppers.

Roth's first self-illustrated picture books were written in collaboration with Ruth Phang. The first of these, Patchwork Tales, features woodcut art shaded in tones of red, yellow, blue, and green that brings to life the stories Grandma tells her young granddaughter at bedtime. The book includes instructions on how to make a quilt. In The Story of Light Roth retells a Pourquoi tale based on a Cherokee myth. The story describes how, when the larger creatures Possum and Buzzard fail to bring light to Earth, it is up to tiny Spider—called "too small," "too old," and "a woman"—to complete the job.

Roth brings to life traditional folk tales in several other books, among them The Biggest Frog in Australia, in which she retells a tall tale about a frog that drinks all the water on the continent. In How Thunder and Lightning Came to Be: A Choctaw Legend she illustrates a story from Native American mythology, while How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves explains, in mythical terms, how a rainbow forms. Roth's illustrations for The Great Ball Game: A Muskogee Story bring to life a stickball game between animals with wings and animals with teeth. Drawing from the Christian faith, Brave Martha and the Dragon depicts how St. Martha, after seeing her brother Lazarus rise from the dead, voyages to France to tame a dragon that is frightening villagers.

Roth turns her attention to slightly older children in her fictionalized picture-book biographies Marco Polo: His Notebooks, Buddha, and Do Re Mi. Formatted as a series of fictional journal entries dictated by the explorer to a writer, the book follows Polo's trek through Jerusalem, Iran, and Afghanistan. In Buddha, Roth recounts the transformation of Siddhartha into Buddha, while Do Re Mi focuses on the medieval Italian monk who developed the first musical notation system. The book, written in collaboration with Maestro Angelo Maffucci, was a special labor of love for Roth. In addition to being adapted as a musical composition by Victoria Bond and staged by Mafucci's Children's Choir of Arezzo, Italy, in 2006, Do Re Mi was presented by Roth to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican the following year.

While many of Roth's books include factual information, some keep all the focus on fun. Break, Thump, Bump!: A Very Spooky Mystery finds three children and a dog bumping around in the dark while attempting to discover the sources of some odd sounds, while Cinnamon's Day Out finds a frisky gerbil taking a holiday in the house. Far more weighty rodents take to the pages of Great Big Guinea Pigs, which couches facts about the rampages of prehistoric Venezuelan guinea pigs within a fictional bedtime story.

Each book project is a unique work in which she adapts her collages to suit the needs of the particular story. For example, in Cinnamon's Day Out, wood shavings, fluff, and corrugated paper can all be found in the mixed-media collages that accompany the text, providing children with an engaging but safely vicarious adventure. In Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah she incorporates the lace and nuts evocative of a special holiday, and a close look at the illustrations of Do Re Mi reveal sheet music, foil, and handmade papers from throughout the world.

Achievements

Susan Roth is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards, among which are Best Illustrated Book, Woodson Elementary Award, and Maryland Black-eyed Susan Picture-Book Award.