Material donated by Trina Schart Hyman in 1975 and 1987.
Non-circulating; available for research.
This collection is protected by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U. S. Code). Reproductions can be made only if they are to be used for "private study, scholarship, or research." It is the user's responsibility to verify copyright ownership and to obtain all necessary permissions prior to the reproduction, publication, or other use of any portion of these materials, other than that noted above.
Trina Schart Hyman was born April 8, 1939 in Pennsylvania in a rural area about twenty miles north of Philadelphia, the daughter of a salesman. The family settled in one of the first housing developments built during World War II. Their house was located next to a farm that was owned by what seemed to the young Hyman to be a king and queen. The "king" was a gentleman farmer who was an archeologist and traveled a lot. The "queen" dressed in overalls and flannel shirts and wore beautiful old rings on her long fingers. She was an artist and made a great impact on the young Hyman, who timidly presented her first drawing to her mentor at age six. The farm was a big influence on Hyman, as well, with its horses, cows, chickens, goats, sheep, cats, and dogs. It had a rambling forty-room house, a hidden rock garden, an enormous stone barn, and a pond for ice skating in the winter.
Hyman's mother gave her the courage to draw and a great love of books. The first story she learned to read was Little Red Riding Hood. She spent hours in her backyard pretending she was on the way to Grandmother's house with a basket of goodies. Her dog, Tippy, was the big bad wolf and her father, coming home from work, was the kind huntsman. Hyman and her younger sister, Karleen, shared a love of fairies and made dolls to look like fairies. Even though Hyman skipped first grade she considered herself a terrible student. She did not like school and felt the traditional classroom setting was not conducive to learning. She preferred to be left alone to read, listen to music, or draw pictures. After eleven years of school she felt that she was hopelessly stupid and would never be able to learn how to think. She could draw, however, and enrolled at Philadelphia Museum College of Art from 1956-1959.
In 1959 she married Harris Hyman, a mechanical engineer. They moved to Boston where she studied at Boston Museum School of the Arts in 1959 and 1960. They lived for a year in Stockholm, Sweden where her husband attended classes at the university while working for IBM-Sweden part-time, while she attended Konstfackskolan (Swedish State Art School) in 1960 and 1961. It was in Sweden that she illustrated her first book, Toffe och den lilla bilen (Toffe and the Little Car), in 1961. Before returning to Boston, she and her husband rode 2,800 miles around Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and England on bicycles in two and a half months.
Back in Boston, Hyman began making the rounds with her portfolio. She did get some work - two Golden Books and some textbook illustration. In 1963 she illustrated Children of the Salmon, a book of Irish folk tales, and came to the attention of Helen Jones, the children's book editor at Little Brown. Jones became the most important contact of her professional life, as well as a good friend.
In 1963 Hyman's daughter, Katrin, was born and later became a model for some of the characters in Hyman's books. In 1968 Hyman divorced and moved to Lyme, New Hampshire. She and Katrin shared a small stone house with Nancie, a friend from Sweden, and her twin daughters. It was here that she wrote her first book, How Six Found Christmas (1969). She began to get more work and Nancie, who was also an artist, began doing the layouts and color overlays. In that same year they also purchased an old farmhouse in Lyme where Hyman still lives.
From 1972 to 1979 Hyman was the art director for Cricket magazine. She also continued to write and illustrate her own books, now numbering six or more, and has illustrated more than one hundred books for others. Among the honors and awards she has received are the Boston Globe-Horn Book honor for illustration in 1968 for All in Free but Janey and in 1978 for On to Widecombe Fair and Book World's Spring Book Festival Award in 1969 for A Walk out of the World and in 1971 for Room Made of Windows. Room Made of Windows was also selected one of the New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year in 1971. The Pumpkin Giant was selected as one of the American Institute of Graphic Arts Children's Books in 1970. She won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for illustration in 1973 for King Stork and in 1983 won both the Golden Kite Award for Illustration and the Parents' Choice Award for Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood was also awarded the Caldecott Honor Book in 1984. Hyman won the Caldecott Medal in 1985 for Saint George and the Dragon: A Golden Legend Adapted form Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen by Margaret Hodges.
Trina Schart Hyman passed away on November 19, 2004.
The collection contains correspondence, material for two titles, and a greeting card. The correspondence, arranged chronologically, is to the de Grummond Collection and dates from 1966 to 1988. The titles are ordered alphabetically, with material for each title arranged in the probable order in which it was created.
Big Sixteen (1983) retold by Mary Calhoun is a black folktale about a man called Big Sixteen because of his size and strength who gets into trouble when The Old Man asks him to fetch the devil. For this title the collection contains one item of correspondence from William Morrow Publishers to Hyman and several color separations. The Bigger They Come (1971) by Osmond Molarsky is the story of a boy named Gilbert and how his uncontrollable urge to dance proves to be an asset when he is confronted by the bully at his new school. The collection also holds color separations for this title.
The collection also includes a color separation for a Christmas card Hyman designed for the de Grummond Collection in 1975 of an illustration from The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen.
The Margaret Hodges Papers (DG0464)
Box/Folder
A. Correspondence
1/1 To de Grummond Collection, 1966-1988, 10 items.
B. Books
BIG SIXTEEN retold by Mary Calhoun, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman
(New York: Morrow, 1983).
1/2 Correspondence, 16 May 1984, 1 item.
1/2-1/3 Illustrations, some with attached proof and text paste-up,
pp. [1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15;
1/3 16-17, 18-19, 20-21, 22-23, 26-27, 28-29, 30-31, and 32].
Color separation, dust jacket.
THE BIGGER THEY COME by Osmond Molarsky, illustrated by Trina
Schart Hyman (New York: H. Z. Walck, 1971).
1/4-1/6 Color separations,
1/4 pp. 2-3, 5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15;
1/5 pp. 16-17, 18-19, 20, 23, 24-25, 26-27, 28-29, 30, 32-33, 35;
1/6 pp. 36-37, 38-39, 41, 43, 44-45, 46-47, 48, cover, and dust
jacket.
C. Greeting Card
de Grummond Christmas Card (1975) from The Snow Queen by Hans
Christian Andersen.
1/7 Color separation, 1 item.
Printed card.
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