McCully, Emily Arnold (1939-…), is an American illustrator and author of children’s books. McCully won the 1993 Caldecott Medal for her illustrations for Mirette on the High Wire (1992), which she also wrote. The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually to the outstanding picture book by an American. Mirette on the High Wire tells the story of a French girl during the 1800’s who becomes friends with the Great Bellini, a tightrope walker. McCully wrote the sequels Starring Mirette & Bellini (1997) and Mirette & Bellini Cross Niagara Falls (2000).
McCully has illustrated more than 200 children’s books, many of which she wrote. Critics and readers have praised her water colors and line drawings for their expressive portrayals of the characters in the stories. McCully wrote and illustrated several series of picture books, some with text and others telling their stories entirely through illustrations. Picnic (1984), the first children’s book she wrote, is about a mouse family going on an outing. The same mice featured in several other books. McCully featured performing bears in The Show Must Go On (1987) and other books. She introduced two grandmothers as continuing characters, starting with The Grandma Mix-Up (1988).
McCully has written and illustrated a number of stories with historical settings. The Amazing Felix (1993) is about a boy magician in the 1920’s. Little Kit; or, The Industrious Flea Circus Girl (1995) takes place in London in the 1800’s. The Pirate Queen (1995) describes the adventures of a female pirate in the 1500’s. The Bobbin Girl (1996) is set in the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, during the 1800’s. Beautiful Warrior: The Legend of the Nun’s Kung Fu (1998) tells about a girl in China during the 1600’s who goes to live in a monastery. The Battle for St. Michael’s (2002) takes place in Maryland during the War of 1812. Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor (2006) is a biography of Mattie Knight, who in 1870 became the first American woman to receive a patent. The biography Ida M. Tarbell (2015) looks at the life of the American author who attacked dishonesty in politics and business in the early 1900’s. Caroline’s Comets: A True Story (2017) is the biography of Caroline Herschel, a great British astronomer of the late 1700’s and 1800’s. Dreaming in Code: Ada Lovelace, Computer Pioneer (2019) is a biography of the English mathematician Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first published computer program in the 1800’s. Taking Off: Airborne with Mary Wilkins Ellis (2022) is the biography of a female pilot in the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force in World War II (1939-1945).
Emily Arnold was born on July 1, 1939, in Galesburg, Illinois. She married George E. McCully, a historian, in 1961. She received a B.A. degree in art history from Pembroke College (now part of Brown University) in 1961 and an M.A. degree, also in art history, from Columbia University in 1964. McCully worked in advertising and as a free-lance magazine illustrator from 1961 to 1967. She illustrated her first children’s book in 1966. McCully also wrote the adult novels A Craving (1982), about an alcoholic artist, and Life Drawing (1986), about a young woman who becomes a painter.
