Joan Sandin

About Joan Sandin

Joan Sandin (born 30 April 1942) is an American illustrator, author and translator of children's books, known for her drawings for early readers such as Joan Lexau's Crocodile and Hen (1969) and for her own picture-book histories of Swedish emigrants.

Born in Watertown, Wisconsin, she graduated with a BFA from the University of Arizona in 1964. She lived in Sweden for more than ten years before returning to the United States in the mid-1980s, and is based in Tucson, Arizona. Her art has been shown in solo exhibitions in both countries.

As an illustrator she worked with Maia Wojciechowska ("Hey, What's Wrong with This One?", 1969), Thomas P. Lewis (Hill of Fire, 1971), Faith McNulty (Woodchuck, 1974), Alan Arkin (The Lemming Condition, 1976), Aileen Fisher (The House of a Mouse, 1988) and Elizabeth Winthrop (As the Crow Flies, 1998). Her own books include The Long Way to a New Land (1981), The Long Way Westward (1989), Pioneer Bear (1995), Coyote School News (2003) and At Home in a New Land (2007). She has translated many Swedish picture books into English, among them Christina Björk and Lena Anderson's Linnea's Windowsill Garden (1988), Gunilla Bergström's Who's Scaring Alfie Atkins? (1987) and Olof and Lena Landström's Boo and Baa books.

For collectors: Crocodile and Hen received an American Institute of Graphic Arts Best Children's Books citation (1970). "Hey, What's Wrong with This One?" won the 1973 Georgia Children's Award, and The Long Way to a New Land was an ALA Notable Book (1981), as was her translation of Linnea's Windowsill Garden (1988). Her surname is pronounced "Sand-een".