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One look at the twinkle in her eyes tells you how she could invent such a captivating story for children. Born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, she recalls a happy life as a child with her two brothers and two sisters. After finishing high school and graduating with a B.A. in psychology from University of Minnesota, she was still uncertain what direction her life would take.
"I wanted to teach sign language to gorillas, but after taking a class in signing, I realized what I'd rather do was draw pictures of gorillas." So off she went to study commercial art at the American Academy in Chicago, fine art at the Atelier Lack in Minneapolis, and children's book writing and illustration at the Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles.
"I spent the first three weeks of my writing class at Otis Parsons filching characters from my classmates' stories. Finally the teacher convinced me that even a beginning writer can create an original character if the character is driven by the writer's most secret weirdness. Eureka! A little girl with a passion for plagiarism! I didn't want anyone to know it was me, so I made the character look like my sister."
The resulting book, Ruby the Copycat, earned Rathman the Most Promising New Author award in the 1991 Cuffie Awards from the bookseller publication Publishers Weekly. Then she turned her attention back to gorillas and produced an almost wordless picture book, Good Night, Gorilla. That story took more than two years to get "just right" and be published. It was worth the wait and reaped numerous awards including Parenting magazine's Best Children's Book of 1994.
In the fall of 1995 came Officer Buckle and Gloria, the story of a police officer upstaged by his canine partner at school safety programs. After acquiring a police dog (Gloria), Officer Buckle suddenly has wonderful attention from the children in the schools of Napville. They even clap their hands, cheer, and write thank-you letters. Best of all, they remember the tips. However, Officer Buckle does not see Gloria's sly and humorous enactments of his safety tips.
Then a television news team videotapes Officer Buckle and Gloria at a large gathering. That night on TV he sees that Gloria has been the real hit, and he refuses to go to any more schools. Accidents begin to happen, even when Gloria goes alone, and a pile of letters convinces Officer Buckle that both he and Gloria are needed.
A clever enough story, it could have become overly sweet and didactic if the illustrations had not said so much more than the straightforward text from Officer Buckle's viewpoint. The book's art is done in bright colors with a bold line and different treatments. Their humor captures Gloria's perspective and gives readers that feeling kids love in a picture book--that they're in on the secret. Lots of little details in the illustrations add content and value to the story that may or may not be noticed on the first read, much of it in notes and letters and even on the end sheets. Rathman, who lives in San Francisco, travels around the country entertaining young audiences with hilarious drawing demonstrations and dramatic readings from her picture books. With its Caldecott Award, Officer Buckle and Gloria will certainly be a part of these appearances. And lucky for us, it will be around for a long time to come.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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