Szepesi niki daly biography
Niki Daly Childrens Book Author and Illustrator
Childrens Book Author and Illustrator
Niki Daly
Niki Daly is a South African author-illustrator whose picture books celebrate the imaginative powers of children and their magnificent everyday lives.
Daly first became involved in drawing by using pencil stubs handed down from an uncle who painted watercolour pictures.
Daly travelled to London at the age of twenty-four in order to pursue a career in singing and song writing. However, economic difficulties ended his music career after two years, and Daly found work as a commercial artist, which eventually led to illustration for childrens books.
Notable about his style are his abilities to view the world from a childs perspective and to see the world in a rainbow of shades, reflective of multicultural modern South Africa.
In books such as Not So Fast, Songololo, Why the Sun and Moon Live in the Sky, The Boy on the Beach, and Jamelas Dress, Daly looks at the day-to-day interactions of the myths that shape black South African reality.
In Niki Daly and his family returned to South Africa after ten years living abroad.
During his first years back in the country of his birth, Daly produced several traditional books for the very young.
When he returned to South Africa, the country was experiencing great unrest as a result of apartheid.
I wrote and illustrated a number of books which reflected the lives of the children on the other side of the racial divide.
Szepesi niki daly biography Daly, John. This is proven already by the way in which children's books can travel and retain their meaning and charm. DALY, Niki. As Daly's young readers will relate, Jamela is unhappy about having to leave her home behind, and when she climbs into a large box to avoid the chaos of the move no one is aware of her hiding place.In retrospect, I see these books (Not So Fast, Songololo, Charlies House, Papa Luckys Shadow, and All the Magic in the World) as half-way bridges between white and black children who live[d] separate and unequal lives determined by the appalling apartheid system. In order to do these books I ignored the myth propagated through apartheid and some political activists who said that there are differences between people.
In the late s Daly established Songololo Books, a childrens book imprint for David Philip Publishers in South Africa.
As an editor he attempted to promote childrens literature for all South African children, and to this end tried to cultivate not only stories about black South Africans, but by them as well.
As a writer, editor, and provider of art workshops, Niki Daly has furthered the creation of a body of South African childrens literature inclusive of all races and ethnic groups.
His books are published locally and abroad and he has been shortlisted for the coveted Hans Christian Andersen Award, and most recently nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Award.
He lives with his wife, Jude, also an illustrator, in Mowbray, Cape Town.
• Not So Fast Songololo winner of:
Parents Choice Foundation Book Award for Literature,
Horn Book Honor List,
Katrine Harries Award (South Africa) for illustration,
• Jamilas Dress winner of:
ALA Notable Childrens Book
Childrens Literature Choice Award
Parents Choice Silver Award
Peter Pan Silver Award in Sweden
• Molteno Gold Medal for his major contribution
to South African childrens literature.
• Award for Illustration: British Arts Council/Provincial Booksellers,
for The Little Girl Who Lived down the Road.
• Why the Sun and Moon Live in the Sky winner of:
New York Times Ten Best Illustrated Books list,
Anne Izard Story Tellers Choice Award,
• International Board on Books for Young People Honors Award for illustration,,
for All the Magic in the World, and , for One Round Moon and a Star for Me.
• Parents Choice Award, , for Bravo, Zan Angelo!
Childrens Africana Book Award Honor Book for Young Children, ,
for Once upon a Time.
Niki Dalys Books Reviewed
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