Mordicai Gerstein (November 24, 1935 – September 24, 2019) was an American artist, writer, and film director, best known for illustrating and writing
children's books. He illustrated the comic
mystery fiction series Something Queer is Going On.
Life and career
Gerstein was born in
Los Angeles, California. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles before getting a job at an animation studio in New York. There he designed characters and came up with ideas for TV commercials.[1] He illustrated the Something Queer Is Going On series, written by
Elizabeth Levy, from 1973 to 2003. He won the 2004
Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (Roaring Brook Press, 2003), which he also wrote.[2] Created in response to the
September 11 attacks, it features the story of
Philippe Petit's unauthorized high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center on August 7, 1974.
Gerstein directed four holiday specials for NBC TV in the late 1970s and early 1980s based on the Berenstain Bears book series, the most notable being The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree, which premiered on December 3, 1979.[3]