Munro Leaf

Wilbur Monroe Leaf (aka Munro Leaf) (December 4, 1905 – December 21, 1976), was an American author of children's literature who wrote and illustrated nearly 40 books during his 40-year career. He is best known for The Story of Ferdinand (1936), a children's classic which he wrote on a yellow legal-length pad in less than an hour. Labeled as subversive, it stirred an international controversy.

Life

Munroe Wilbur Leaf was born on 4 December 1905, the son of Charles W Leaf (1871-1965) and Emma India Leaf in Hamilton, Maryland. Leaf had an older sister, Elizabeth W Leaf. By 1910 his family lived in Washington, D.C. where his father had established his career as a machinist at the Government Printing Office. Leaf graduated from the University of Maryland in 1927 where he had played lacrosse and been class treasurer, and from Harvard University with a master's degree in English literature in 1931. He honeymooned with his wife Margaret Pope in Europe in 1928. He taught secondary school and then worked as an editor with the publisher Frederick A. Stokes Company. Leaf once commented, "Early on in my writing career I realized that if one found some truths worth telling they should be told to the young in terms that were understandable to them."

He wrote The Story of Ferdinand for his friend, illustrator Robert Lawson. The story, which follows a gentle bull in rural Spain who prefers smelling flowers to bullfighting, sparked considerable controversy because Ferdinand was regarded by some as a pacifist symbol. Banned in Spain and burned as propaganda in Nazi Germany, the book had over 60 foreign translations and has never gone out of print. The story was adapted into a Walt Disney film which won a 1938 Academy Award.

Leaf and Lawson's second collaboration, Wee Gillis, about a boy living in Scotland halfway between his father's family in the Highlands and his mother's in the Lowlands, was cited as a 1939 Caldecott Honor Book.

During the Second World War, Leaf worked for the Army Department and after the war, he volunteered his skills to the State Department, insisting he was "anxious to work with the [Office of Public Affairs] (without compensation and in an unofficial capacity)...on international policy matters". This collaboration resulted in a cartoon book, published by the Committee for the Marshall Plan, titled Who Is the Man Against the Marshall Plan?, a Bibliography of Basic Official Documents.

Leaf's University of Maryland lacrosse stick was donated as the travelling trophy between Ann Arbor Pioneer and Ann Arbor Skyline high schools, to be possessed by the winner of each matchup between contests. Leaf had introduced lacrosse to his sons Andrew and Dr. James 'Gil' Leaf. Gil Leaf played goalie for Harvard from 1961-1963 and when his career in education took him and the lacrosse stick to Ann Arbor to be head of school at Emerson, he started the area’s first middle school lacrosse program in the 1980s, before going on to coach at Pioneer High School and the University of Michigan.

Watchbirds

Leaf's other notable creation was the Watchbirds cartoon series, a cartoon commentary on human behavior. It ran as regular feature in the Ladies' Home Journal and was later collected into several books.

During the Second World War, Leaf and Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) created the pamphlet, This Is Ann, about a mosquito spreading malaria to men who failed to take precautions.

On April 22, 1995, Leaf was inducted into the University of Maryland Alumni Hall of Fame. Some of his books have been brought back into print in recent years.

Music

The English composer Alan Ridout set The Story of Ferdinand to music. A version in French, released on Analekta (AN2 8741–2), is Solo by Angèle Dubeau, narrated by Pierre Lebeau.

In 1998, the Minnesota Orchestra commissioned Alice Gomez to write two works based on The Story of Ferdinand. Composed in a Spanish style, El Piquete de Abeja (the Bee Sting) and Habanera de Ferdinand make up the Ferdinand-inspired suite. These works were recorded in 2008 by the Michigan Philharmonic and are available on their CD Magical Tunes & Marvelous Tales.