Trina Schart Hyman (April 8, 1939—November 19, 2004) was an American illustrator of children's books. She illustrated over 150 books, including fairy tales and Arthurian legends, and was the recipient of three Caldecott Honors and one Caldecott Medal.
Born in Philadelphia to Margaret Doris Bruck and Albert H. Schart, she grew up in a rural area of Pennsylvania and learned to read and draw at an early age. Her favorite story as a child was Little Red Riding Hood, and she spent an entire year of her childhood wearing a red cape.
She enrolled at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art (now part of the University of the Arts in 1956, but moved to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1959 after marrying Harris Hyman, a mathematician and engineer. She graduated from School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1960.
The couple then moved to Stockholm, Sweden, for two years, where Trina studied at the Konstfackskolan (Swedish State Art School) and illustrated her first children's book, titled Toffe och den lilla bilen (Toffe and the Little Car).
In 1963, the couple's daughter, Katrin Tchana (né Hyman), was born, but in 1968, they divorced, and Trina and Katrin moved to Lyme, New Hampshire. Trina lived for some time with the children's writer and editor Barbara Rogasky (with whom she collaborated on several projects). For about the last decade of her life, her partner was teacher Jean K. Aull.She was the first art director of Cricket Magazine from 1973 to 1979 but contributed regularly to the publication until her death. Her books have won numerous awards, including a Caldecott Honor for illustrating Little Red Riding Hood in 1984, the Caldecott Medal for Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges in 1985, and Caldecott Honors for Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel in 1990 and A Child's Calendar by John Updike in 2000; an honor book in the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards for illustration in 1968 for All in Free but Janey and in 1978 for On to Widecombe Fair, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for illustration in 1973 for King Stork. Many of her illustrations can be quite complex. For example, in one scene in Saint George and the Dragon, the dragon's tail stretches into the border artwork of the next page.
She is also considered one of the first white American illustrators to regularly incorporate Black characters into her illustrations, as a matter of principle, in large part triggered by her daughter's marriage to a man from Cameroon. Her grandchildren appear in several of her books.
She died from breast cancer, aged 65, on November 19, 2004. The third book she completed with her daughter was published in 2006, which was titled Changing Woman and Her Sisters, Goddesses from Around the World.A print portfolio was created from this book by Katrin Tchana and the Child at Heart Gallery.
(Reteller) The Sleeping Beauty, from the Brothers Grimm, 1977.
A Little Alphabet, 1980.
Self-Portrait: Trina Schart Hyman, 1981.
(Reteller) Little Red Riding Hood, from the Brothers Grimm, 1983.
The Enchanted Forest, 1984.
Illustrated
Hertha Von Gebhardt, Toffe och den lilla bilen, 1961.
Carl Memling, Riddles, Riddles, from A to Z, 1963.
Melanie Bellah, Bow Wow! Meow!, 1963.
Sandol S. Warburg, Curl Up Small, 1964.
Eileen O'Faolain, Children of the Salmon, 1965.
All Kinds of Signs, 1965.
Ruth Sawyer, Joy to the World: Christmas Legends, 1966.
Joyce Varney, The Magic Maker, 1966.
Virginia Haviland, reteller, Favourite Fairy Tales Told in Czechoslovakia, 1966.
Edna Butler Trickey, Billy Finds Out, 1966.
E. B. Trickey, Billy Celebrates, 1966.
Jacob D. Townsend, The Five Trials of the Pansy Bed, 1967.
Elizabeth Johnson, Stuck with Luck, 1967.
Josephine Poole, Moon Eyes, 1967.
John T. Moore, Cinnamon Seed, 1967.
Paul Tripp, The Little Red Flower, 1968.
Eve Merriam, reteller, Epaminondas, 1972.
J. Varney, The Half-Time Gypsy, 1968.
E. Johnson, All in Free but Janey, 1968.
Norah Smaridge, I Do My Best, 1968.
Betty M. Owen and Mary MacEwen, editors, Wreath of Carols, 1968.
Tom McGowen, Dragon Stew, 1969.
Susan Meyers, The Cabin on the Fjord, 1969.
Peter Hunter Blair, The Coming of Pout, 1969.
Clyde R. Bulla, The Moon Singer, 1969.
Ruth Nichols, A Walk Out of the World, 1969.
Claudia Paley, Benjamin the True, 1969.
P. Tripp, The Vi-Daylin Book of Minnie the Mump, 1970.
Donald J. Sobol, Greta the Strong, 1970.
Blanche Luria Serwer, reteller, Let's Steal the Moon: Jewish Tales, Ancient and Recent, 1970.
Mollie Hunter, The Walking Stones: A Story of Suspense, 1970.
Tom McGowen, Sir MacHinery, 1970.
Phyllis Krasilovsky, The Shy Little Girl, 1970.
The Pumpkin Giant, retold by Ellin Greene, 1970.
Wylly Folk St. John, The Ghost Next Door, 1971.
Osmond Molarsky, The Bigger They Come, 1971.
O. Molarsky, Take It or Leave It, 1971.
Carolyn Meyer, The Bread Book: All about Bread and How to Make It, 1971.
E. Johnson, Break a Magic Circle, 1971.
E. Greene, reteller, Princess Rosetta and the Popcorn Man, 1971.
Eleanor Cameron, A Room Made of Windows, 1971.
Eleanor Clymer, How I Went Shopping and What I Got, 1972.
Dori White, Sarah and Katie, 1972.
Ruth Nichols, The Marrow of the World, 1972.
Eva Moore, The Fairy Tale Life of Hans Christian Andersen, 1972.
Jan Wahl, Magic Heart, 1972.
P. Krasilovsky, The Popular Girls Club, 1972.
Paula Hendrich, Who Says So?, 1972.
Myra Cohn Livingston, editor, Listen, Children, Listen: An Anthology of Poems for the Very Young, 1972.
Carol Ryrie Brink, The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein, 1972.
Howard Pyle, King Stork, 1973.
Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling and Two Other Stories, edited by Lillian Moore, 1973.
Phyllis La Farge, Joanna Runs Away, 1973.
E. Greene, compiler, Clever Cooks: A Concoction of Stories, Recipes and Riddles, 1973.
C. R. Brink, Caddie Woodlawn, revised edition, 1973.
Elizabeth Coatsworth, The Wanderers, 1973.
Eleanor G. Vance, The Everything Book, 1974.
Doris Gates, Two Queens of Heaven: Aphrodite and Demeter, 1974.
Dorothy S. Carter, editor, Greedy Mariani and Other Folktales of the Antilles, 1974.
Charles Causley, Figgie Hobbin, 1974.
Charlotte Herman, You've Come a Long Way, Sybil McIntosh: A Book of Manners and Grooming for Girls, 1974.
J. Grimm and W. Grimm, Snow White, translated from the German by Paul Heins, 1974.
Jean Fritz, Why Don't You Get a Horse, Sam Adams?, 1974.
March Wiesbauer, The Big Green Bean, 1974.
Tobi Tobias, The Quitting Deal, 1975.
Margaret Kimmel, Magic in the Mist, 1975.
Jane Curry, The Watchers, 1975.
Louise Moeri, Star Mother's Youngest Child, 1975.
Jean Fritz, Will You Sign Here, John Hancock?, 1976.
Daisy Wallace, editor, Witch Poems, 1976.
William Sleator, Among the Dolls, 1976.
Tobi Tobias, Jane, Wishing, 1977.
Spiridon Vangheli, Meet Guguze, 1977.
Norma Farber, Six Impossible Things before Breakfast, 1977.
Betsy Hearne, South Star, 1977.
Patricia Gauch, On to Widecombe Fair, 1978.
Betsy Hearne, Home, 1979.
Norma Farber, How Does It Feel to Be Old?, 1979.
Pamela Stearns, The Mechanical Doll, 1979.
Barbara S. Hazen, Tight Times, 1979.
Daisy Wallace, editor, Fairy Poems, 1980.
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, 1980.
Elizabeth G. Jones, editor, Ranger Rick's Holiday Book, 1980.
Kathryn Lasky, The Night Journey, 1981.
Jean Fritz, The Man Who Loved Books, 1981.
J. Grimm and W. Grimm, Rapunzel, retold by Barbara Rogasky, 1982.
Margaret Mary Kimmel and Elizabeth Segel, For Reading Out Loud! A Guide to Sharing Books with Children, 1983.
Mary Calhoun, Big Sixteen, 1983.
Astrid Lindgren, Ronia the Robber's Daughter, 1983.
Charles Dickens, In Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, 1983.
M. C. Livingston, Christmas Poems, 1984.
(With Hilary Knight and others) Pamela Espeland and Marilyn Waniek, The Cat Walked through the Casserole: And Other Poems for Children, 1984.
Margaret Hodges, Saint George and the Dragon: A Golden Legend Adapted from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen, 1984.
Elizabeth Winthrop, The Castle in the Attic, 1985.
Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales, 1985.
J. Grimm and W. Grimm, The Water of Life, retold by B. Rogasky, 1986.
Vivian Vande Velde, A Hidden Magic, 1986.
Myra Cohn Livingston, compiler, Cat Poems, 1987.
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1988.
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, adapted by Barbara Cohen, 1988.
(With Marcia Brown and others) Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, compiler, Sing a Song of Popcorn, 1988.
Swan Lake, retold by Margot Fonteyn, 1989.
Eric Kimmel, Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, 1989.
Margaret Hodges, The Kitchen Knight: A Tale from King Arthur, 1990.
B. Rogasky, compiler and editor, Winter Poems, 1991.
Lloyd Alexander, The Fortune-Tellers, 1992.
Marion Dane Bauer, Ghost Eye, 1992.
Eric A. Kimmel, reteller, Iron John, 1994.
Kimmel, reteller, The Adventures of Hershel of Ostropol, 1995.
Barbara Rogasky, The Golem: A Version, 1996.
Margaret Hodges, adapter, Comus, 1996.
Angela Shelf Medearis, Haunts: Five Hair-Raising Tales, 1996.
Howard Pyle, Bearskin, 1997.
John Updike, A Child's Calendar, 1999.
Katrin Tchana, reteller, The Serpent Slayer and Other Stories of Strong Women, 2000.
Sherry Garland, Children of the Dragon: Selected Tales from Vietnam, 2001.
Katrin Tchana, Sense Pass King: A Tale from Cameroon, 2002.
Dean Whitlock, "Sky Carver", 2005
Contributor of illustrations to textbooks and Cricket magazine.
Katrin Tchana, Changing Woman and Her Sisters: Goddesses from Around the World, 2006.
Adaptations
Dragon Stew was adapted as a filmstrip with record, BFA Educational Media, 1975; Tight Times was filmed as a "Reading Rainbow" special, PBS-TV, 1983; Little Red Riding Hood was adapted as a filmstrip with cassette, Listening Library, 1984.
