Lillian Hoban Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

The strong sales of A Bargain for Frances in the I-Can-Read format, led to the republishing of many of the rest of the titles originally published as picture books in this easy to read format: Bread and Jam for Frances (2008), Best Friends for Frances (2009), A Baby Sister for Frances (2011) and A Birthday for Frances (2012). Both Russell and his daughter Phoebe helped in this conversion.

Lillian Hoban died at Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan in 1998 (aged 73) from heart failure.

Lillian Hoban died at Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan in 1998 (aged 73) from heart failure.

Hoban illustrated the Riverside Kids series written by Johanna Hurwitz that explores growing up in an apartment in the heart of New York City. These titles include Busybody Nora, Superduper Teddy, Rip-Roaring Russell, and Elisa In The Middle. The last Riverside Kids book she illustrated was Ever-Clever Elisa published in 1997.

Other notable books that Hoban illustrated during this period include collaborations with two of her children. The Amy Loves series written by her daughter Julia portrays a child’s joy at experiencing the changing seasons. The books include Amy Loves the Loves the Sun, Amy Loves the Wind, Amy Loves the Rain and Amy Loves the Snow, all published in 1989. Julia and Lillian followed those books with Buzby the cat (1990), an amusing and delightful story of a cat seeking his place in the world. Hoban also collaborated with her oldest daughter Phoebe on two books, Ready-Set-Robot! (1982), alternately titled The Messiest Robot in Zone One in the Weekly Book Club edition, and a second book, the Laziest Robot in Zone One (1983). Both books explore childhood traits and lessons in a futuristic setting. Hoban’s son Brom illustrated The Sea-Thing Child (1972) authored by his father, Russell Hoban. He also wrote and illustrated three children’s books. Although she did not collaborate with Brom on any of these books, Hoban encouraged him to write from personal experience after reading some of his early attempts that included fantasy plots and monsters. His book, October Fort (1981), was based on his own experience as child building a fort in his backyard.

In a departure from the themes of childhood she so often explored during her career, Hoban captured the endearing charm of an elderly woman who cannot seem to remember anything in the Silly Tilly books. One of the early drafts of the first book, Silly Tilly and the Easter Bunny (1987), was titled, Lizzie Mole. Later drafts show Grandma Mole lined out and replaced with Tillie Mole. The epithet Silly was added at some point before the final publication of the book. All three of the Silly Tilly books are set around the celebration of holidays, a fascination of Hoban’s for much of her career that found their way into dozens of her books. In 1965 Hoban was commissioned, along with Robert Krauss and Anita Lobel, to create oversized posters for the various holidays to display in school libraries and classrooms. Hoban’s posters included the following holidays: Halloween, Valentines, Christmas, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (Robert Krauss illustrated the Easter poster and Anita Lobel, Thanksgiving). Holidays served as the basis of some of her very best work including her last Silly Tilly book, Silly Tilly’s Valentine, that was published posthumously in December 1998, five months after her death.

Hoban returned to familiar themes in No, No Sammy Crow (1981), telling the humorous and touching story of little Sammy Crow who cannot stop carrying around his baby blanket. His caring mother encourages him to find a solution to his attachment. In classic Hoban fashion, Sammy finds a creative resolution as he gives up his blanket to help hatch his new baby sibling. In the original typed manuscript, the last page of the book is handwritten on the manuscript (possibly a last-minute inspiration) that reveals how Sammy Crow secretly kept a small piece of the soft blanket in his pocket that he “niced” with his two fingers while his sister praised him for giving up his blanket. This final touch is Hoban at her finest, tuned in so sensitively and empathetically with the feelings of a young child. The guilty expression of self-indulgence on Sammy’s face in the illustration tells all.

The 1980s marked Hoban’s most productive period as she illustrated over forty books, the most of any decade. This included four more Arthur books, five books in the Riverside Kids series and eleven books authored by Miriam Cohen.

Hoban briefly ventured into juvenile fiction with the publication of her one and only young adult novel, I Met a Traveler, in 1977. Inspired by a young Jewish girl she met while visiting Israel, the novel tells the story of an eleven-year-old girl from Connecticut taken to Jerusalem by her eccentric mother. Hoban had previously illustrated three other stories for older children, Mitchell F. Jayne’s The Forest in the Wind (1966), Meindert Dejong’s The Easter Cat (1971) and Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and His Child (1967), the latter widely considered to be a classic.

Lillian Hoban went on to find great success as an author and illustrator in the “I-Can-Read” books issued by Harper with early guidance from her long-time editor at Harper & Row, Ursula Nordstrom. Hoban explains that she did not set out to write an Easy Reader but simply wrote a story for children. Nordstrom loved the manuscript and fit it into the standard I-Can-Read format without changing a word. The Arthur series soon became wildly popular among children. Arthur the chimpanzee and his little sister Violet, explore many of the same trials and tribulations of childhood that she and her husband first explored with the Frances series. Hoban’s first book in the series, Arthur’s Christmas Cookies (1972), came from listening to her children baking cookies in the kitchen. Her son, Brom, devised a scheme to bake clay cookies, decorate them, and sell them for ornaments around the neighborhood to make money to buy Christmas gifts. In the book, Arthur makes clay cookies by mistake and then decides to make ornaments. Arthur’s Honey Bear (1974) was also inspired by Hoban’s experience with her own children who, along with the neighborhood kids, began selling their toys to each other. The activity led to a 2:00 am phone call from a concerned father who offered fifty dollars for Scooby-Doo because his son could not sleep without his security toy. Other popular titles written by Lillian Hoban in the I-Can-Read format include the Tilly the Mole and Mr. Pig books.

Hoban did not consider herself an expert draughtsman. The first step in her illustration of characters, she explains, is capturing expression. She explains that in preparing an illustration she will first practice making multiple expressions until she finds the one that best fits the character and situation. This process created many a humorous moment for her small children when they would sneak into her home studio and find their mother making faces in the mirror. Much of her early books were printed in two colors plus black. The illustrations were created through a tedious process known as three-color separation. She most often chose the primary colors of red and yellow. Through the overlay process, she was able to make purple (red over black), green (yellow over black), orange (yellow over red). Hoban was delighted when the books started to be published in full color and she used pastels, water colors, and colored pencils sometimes in the same picture. See A Bargain for Frances, 1970 (three color separation) and the same title reprinted in 1992 in full color. Language, however, is first and foremost for Hoban as an author. The sound of the words, the rhythm of the sentences must sound natural and pleasing to her ear and the ear of a child.

The Hobans raised their four children, Phoebe, Brom, Julia and Esmé, in Norwalk, CT before moving to a woodsy two-and-a-half-acre property in Wilton, CT. The Hobans moved to London in 1969. But within a year, the marriage had become strained. Lillian and the children soon moved back to Wilton while Russell stayed in London and remarried in 1975. Lillian began writing her own stories upon returning to the United States. She based her tales on her experiences with her children and their neighborhood friends.

Hoban was especially fond of the First Grade Friends series of books that she illustrated for Miriam Cohen. The series follows an entire classroom from pre-school to second grade. The first book in the series, Will I Have a Friend was published in 1967. Other titles in this series include Best Friends, The New Teacher, Tough Jim, and Starring First Grade. The last book in the series, and the only book that takes place in 2nd grade, was titled The Real Skin Monster Mask, and was published in 1990.

In all, the Hobans collaborated on at least twenty-seven children’s books between 1964 and 1972. Other standouts in the Lillian and Russell collaboration include the Brute Family books: The Little Brute Family (1966) and The Stone Doll of Sister Brute (1968). The books tell the humorous and heartwarming tale of a mean-spirited family that discovers the contagiousness of a good feeling and niceness. Both books were reprinted as Dell paperbacks and The Little Brute Family was republished by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2002. Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, based on the short story The Gift of the Magi by O’Henry told the story Emmett Otter and his widowed mother who enter a talent contest to earn money to buy each other Christmas gifts. The book won the Christopher Award in 1972. In 1977 the Jim Henson Company produced the television film adaptation and a musical stage adaption in 2008. Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas marked the Hobans’ final collaborative effort.

Her earliest and, perhaps, greatest collaboration was with her husband Russell in the 1960s and early 1970s. The centerpiece of this work was the Frances series written by Russell. The character of Frances was inspired by the Hoban’s next door neighbors in Norwalk, CT whose daughter found multiple ways of putting off her bedtime.

Lillian Hoban (May 18, 1925 – July 17, 1998) was an American illustrator and children’s writer best known for picture books created with her husband Russell Hoban. According to OCLC, she has published 326 works in 1,401 publications in 11 languages.