She worked in graphic design before she began illustrating children's books in her 50s, starting with 1987's 'Growing Vegetable Soup.

Its only words are the names of the shapes and creatures themselves.Įhlert was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin and graduated from Milwaukee's Layton School of Art. WAITING FOR WINGS by Lois Ehlert & illustrated by Lois Ehlert RELEASE DATE: ApWith each spread opening to an explosion of bright, gorgeous color, Ehlert ( Market Day, 2000, etc.) takes a close-up look at the life stages of four butterflies, all of which are seen amidst a profusion of the plant life on which they subsist. Her other books include 1988s 'Planting a Rainbow,' 1989s 'Eating the Alphabet' and 2001s 'Waiting for Wings.' Featured Weekly Ad. In 1990, she was given a Caldecott Honor as the author and illustrator of 'Color Zoo,' which uses basic triangles, rectangles, squares and circles to create images of animals in oversaturated oranges, purples and greens. She worked primarily by cutting out shapes and pasting them into collages, much like the preschoolers who were her primary audience. In this outsize book with inside flaps, Lois Ehlert's 'Waiting for Wings' sublimates nature through art in her unmistakably powerful style, depicting in rhyme the metamorphosis of the lowly. The book sold more than 12 million copies, according to Simon & Schuster.

In 1989's 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,' Ehlert created the hyper-simple brown-and-green coconut tree and the multicolored capital letters who try to gather at the top of it, threatening to bring it tumbling to the ground as the text repeats, 'Chicka chicka boom boom! Will there be enough room?' Publisher Simon & Schuster said that Ehlert died of natural causes on Tuesday in Milwaukee. Obituaries Eric Carle, Creator Of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar,' Has Died

Waiting for wings by lois ehlert