Rojankovsky, << `roh` jan KAWF skee, >> Feodor (1891-1970), was a Russian-American artist and illustrator of books for children. In 1956, Rojankovsky won the Caldecott medal for illustrating John Langstaff’s Frog Went A-Courtin’ (1955).
Rojankovsky was born on Dec. 24, 1891, in Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire), and studied from 1912 to 1914 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Moscow. The Russian Revolution interrupted his career, but in 1925 he went to Paris, hoping to illustrate books for children. He stayed there until 1941, when he moved to the United States. Rojankovsky illustrated more than 100 books. His first illustrations, published in Paris, appeared in Esther Averill’s Daniel Boone (1931). Rojankovsky also illustrated Averill’s Cartier Sails the St. Lawrence (1937, reissued 1956), The Tall Book of Mother Goose (1942), and a series of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Rojankovsky died on Oct. 12, 1970.
