A new book explores how Minnesota-born artist Wanda Gag transformed children's literature and illustrating in the 1920's. Gag's books "Millions of Cats" and "The A-B-C Bunny" both won Newbury Awards. She's known as the first children's book author to draw an illustration that covers two pages of a book. Julie L'Enfant is a professor at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul. Her book--entitled "The Gag Family: German-Bohemian Artists in America," looks at newly discovered works and documents. It explores how Wanda Gag's family and her life in New Ulm influenced her work. The patriarch of the family--Anton Gag--was a German-Bohemian immigrant who settled in New Ulm in 1879. He was an artist and one of the first photographers in the region. Julie L'Enfant says although Anton died of tuberculosis at a young age--he encouraged his seven children to live freely and to become artists...

This file was digitized with the help of a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).