Margaret Bloy Graham (2 November 1920 – 22 January 2015) was a Canadian creator of children's books, primarily as an illustrator of picture books. She is best known for her work on Harry the Dirty Dog (1956) and other books in the same series written by her then-husband Gene Zion.
Early life Graham was born in Toronto. Her father, Malcolm Robert Graham, was a physician and her mother Florence (née Bloy) was a nurse. When Graham was one, the family moved to Sandwich, Ontario (now part of Windsor), where her father became the superintendent of the local sanatorium. Her childhood was spent in Ontario, but she spent her summer holidays with either her grandfather in England or an aunt in the United States. The family returned to Toronto when she was ten. She attended Saturday morning classes at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Graham majored in art history at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1943. After graduation, she attended a summer course at the Art Students League of New York. She later supplemented her studies at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts and also The New School for Social Research.
She decided to stay in New York to establish a career as a commercial artist. From 1944 to 1945 she worked as a drafter for Gibbs & Cox and in 1946 she started work in the art department of Condé Nast, where she remained until 1956.
Career Graham met her first husband Gene Zion at Condé Nast. They were married in July 1948.
Zion was urged by Graham and his editor, Ursula Nordstrom of Harper and Brothers, to write children's books. He has said that it was Graham’s sketch of children gathering apples in an orchard, done several years earlier in Canada, that inspired his first book, All Falling Down (1951).
The husband-and-wife team became famous for the Harry series of books, beginning with Harry the Dirty Dog (1956) and followed by No Roses for Harry! (1958), Harry and the Lady Next Door (1960) and Harry By the Sea (1965). The collaboration ended with their divorce in 1968.
Graham received two Caldecott Medals, one for her work on All Falling Down and the second for her work on The Storm Book.
Graham launched her own writing career around the time of the divorce with Be Nice to Spiders (1967). She later developed her own canine hero, Benjy, through a series of books.
Later life Graham remarried in 1972 to a merchant-ship officer, Oliver W. Holmes, Jr. She lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts in her retirement. She died on January 22, 2015. In 2022, she was inducted posthumously into the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame.
Major works
As author and illustrator TitleYear Publisher Be Nice To Spiders 1967 HarperCollins Benjy and the Barking Bird 1971 HarperCollins Benjy’s Dog House 1973 HarperCollins Benjy’s Boat Trip 1977 HarperCollins Benjy and His Friend Fifi 1988 HarperCollins
As illustrator TitleYear Author Publisher All Falling Down 1951 Gene Zion HarperCollins The Storm Book 1952 Charlotte Zolotow HarperCollins Hide and Seek Day 1954 Gene Zion HarperCollins The Summer Snowman 1955 Gene Zion HarperCollins Harry the Dirty Dog 1956 Gene Zion HarperCollins Really Spring 1956 Gene Zion HarperCollins Dear Garbage Man 1957 Gene Zion HarperCollins Jeffie's Party 1957 Gene Zion HarperCollins No Roses for Harry 1958 Gene Zion HarperCollins The Plant Sitter 1959 Gene Zion HarperCollins Harry and the Lady Next Door 1960 Gene Zion HarperCollins The Meanest Squirrel I Ever Met 1963 Gene Zion Scribner's The Sugar Mouse Cake 1964 Gene Zion Scribner's Harry by the Sea 1965 Gene Zion HarperCollins The Green Hornet Lunchbox 1970Shirley Gordon Houghton Mifflin The Pack Rat’s Day and Other Poems 1974 Jack Prelutsky Macmillan Publishers What If? 1987 Else Holmelund Minarik Greenwillow Books It’s Spring! 1989 Else Holmelund Minarik Greenwillow Books
Notes
General references
External links
Margaret Bloy Graham Collection at Children's Literature Research Collections, University of Minnesota