Sunday, November 14, 2021

One Hundred Years of Shrekitude - November 14, 2007

 

Some say coincidence rules us and accounts for life's mysteries. 

We prefer to think otherwise. 

How else to explain that two creators of beloved children's characters were born 100 years ago on November 14, 1907? 

While Astrid Lindgren was being born in Vimmerby, Sweden, William Stieg was greeting the world in Brooklyn.

Lindgren got a head start on Stieg, creating the free-spirited, red-haired, super-strong Pippi Longstocking in 1945, who was was soon joined by Karlsson-on-the-Roof, boy detective Kalle Blomkvist, and many others. 

Stieg took a different path, becoming a sculptor and artist (with more than 1,600 cartoons published in The New Yorker) before turning his hand to children's books in 1968 (with "CDB!"). 

His third book, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, won the Caldecott Medal in 1970. In 1990 he created the ogre Shrek, who has since taken on a life of his own. 

Those who still believe in coincidence can note that Lindgren's and Steig's deaths were almost two years apart, but we prefer to think that, after almost a century, even Mother Nature's timing can be a little off.

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