Obituary Note: Kim Gamble

Australian children's book illustrator Kim Gamble, the "much-loved, award-winning artist... known for illustrating the bestselling Tashi books," died February 19, the Age reported. He was 63. The series, written by the mother/daughter team of Barbara and Anna Fienberg and launched in 1995, made Tashi an iconic children's character, with more than a million books sold in Australia and New Zealand, as well as translations into more than 20 languages

Anna Fienberg praised Gamble's imagination as "a magic gift which he shared with the world. I was so amazingly lucky to work with him for 20 years, making books together. He developed the deliberate silences left in the text, creating the world lying beneath. He extended the themes, feelings, light in the landscape, helping me discover what I had written. Working with Kim was like learning a new way to see."

Children's literature specialist Judith Ridge called Gamble "one of the greatest children's book illustrators this country has ever produced. His empathy for children and childhood is untouched."