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Biography & Autobiography
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From: Ginny Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 15:30:00 -600
I've been thinking about the increasing number of biographies and autobiographies whose subjects are authors or illustrators of children's or young adult books. Which of these are particularly interesting for the children or young teenagers with whom you work? for your study of children's or young adult literatue? from a literary perspective? The books I've been noticing are not typical biographies or autobiographies in terms of approach. Maybe they aren't biographies or autobiographies, period! What about the question of definition? Here are a few of the books I especially appreciate:
1) Pat Cummings' Talking with Artists, Volumes I (Bradbury, 1992) & Volume II (Simon & Schuster, 1995). They provide glimpses of each artist as a child and as a working artist in adulthood. Artists' answers to the same questions are show remarkable similarities as well as differences. The artists are well selected, demonstrating a wide range of books, styles and personal backgrounds.
2) James Stevenson's gentle, perceptive recollections of his boyhood during the 1930s and 1940s; all are published by Greenwillow: When I Was Nine (1986), Higher on the Door (1987), July (1990), Don't You Know There's a War On? (1992), Fun - No Fun (1994), I Had a Lot of Wishes (1995), and I Meant to Tell You (1996). Stevenson remembers how it feels to be a kid, to want something (even something small, such as getting the right piece of candy when it's passed by an adult), or the ambiguity of Fun. Most young readers can relate to many of his memories. He fills each book with reminiscences about incidents to which some children's grandparents or great-grandparents might relate today. Stevenson recalls what seems to me to be a somewhat idyllic, economically privileged boyhood, but because each book looks like a picture book with very little to read, the "period" and class references are not the barriers they otherwise might be for many young readers.
3) Betsy Byars' The Moon and I (Julian Messner, 1992). This autobiography succeeds in being child-friendly as well as informative because she wrote it at the same general level young readers find in her novels. Her uses of personal flashbacks and dialogue are superb. Other author autobiographies published by Julian Messner include Laurence Yep's The Lost Garden (1991), Nicholasa Mohr's Growing Up in the Sanctuary of My Imagination (1994), and Yoshiko Uchida's The Invisible Thread (1991). Although Byars is the best in the "child friendly" department, the others are also excellent.
4) Alma Flor Ada's Where the Flame Trees Bloom (Atheneum, 1994). Ada's storytelling gifts are evident in eleven scenes from her childhood in Cuba.
5) Ted Lewin's I Was a Teenage Professional Wrestler (Orchard, 1993). Portrait of the Artist as a Young...pro wrestler? Yes. True! Lewin's first-hand look at pro wrestling and his role in this sport during the early 1950s are illustrated with photos as well as reproductions of some of Lewin's earliest sketches and paintings.
6) Bill Peet; An Autobiography (Houghton Mifflin, 1989) is probably well known to everyone...
7) and so are Jean Little's autobiographies Little by Little (1988) what an inspired title! - and Stars Come Out Within (1991) both published in the U.S.A. by Viking.
I could mention many other author or artist autobiographies, but how about you? Which ones come to your mind?
... Ginny
********************************************************************** Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St., Madison, WI 53706 USA
Received on Tue 28 May 1996 04:30:00 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 15:30:00 -600
I've been thinking about the increasing number of biographies and autobiographies whose subjects are authors or illustrators of children's or young adult books. Which of these are particularly interesting for the children or young teenagers with whom you work? for your study of children's or young adult literatue? from a literary perspective? The books I've been noticing are not typical biographies or autobiographies in terms of approach. Maybe they aren't biographies or autobiographies, period! What about the question of definition? Here are a few of the books I especially appreciate:
1) Pat Cummings' Talking with Artists, Volumes I (Bradbury, 1992) & Volume II (Simon & Schuster, 1995). They provide glimpses of each artist as a child and as a working artist in adulthood. Artists' answers to the same questions are show remarkable similarities as well as differences. The artists are well selected, demonstrating a wide range of books, styles and personal backgrounds.
2) James Stevenson's gentle, perceptive recollections of his boyhood during the 1930s and 1940s; all are published by Greenwillow: When I Was Nine (1986), Higher on the Door (1987), July (1990), Don't You Know There's a War On? (1992), Fun - No Fun (1994), I Had a Lot of Wishes (1995), and I Meant to Tell You (1996). Stevenson remembers how it feels to be a kid, to want something (even something small, such as getting the right piece of candy when it's passed by an adult), or the ambiguity of Fun. Most young readers can relate to many of his memories. He fills each book with reminiscences about incidents to which some children's grandparents or great-grandparents might relate today. Stevenson recalls what seems to me to be a somewhat idyllic, economically privileged boyhood, but because each book looks like a picture book with very little to read, the "period" and class references are not the barriers they otherwise might be for many young readers.
3) Betsy Byars' The Moon and I (Julian Messner, 1992). This autobiography succeeds in being child-friendly as well as informative because she wrote it at the same general level young readers find in her novels. Her uses of personal flashbacks and dialogue are superb. Other author autobiographies published by Julian Messner include Laurence Yep's The Lost Garden (1991), Nicholasa Mohr's Growing Up in the Sanctuary of My Imagination (1994), and Yoshiko Uchida's The Invisible Thread (1991). Although Byars is the best in the "child friendly" department, the others are also excellent.
4) Alma Flor Ada's Where the Flame Trees Bloom (Atheneum, 1994). Ada's storytelling gifts are evident in eleven scenes from her childhood in Cuba.
5) Ted Lewin's I Was a Teenage Professional Wrestler (Orchard, 1993). Portrait of the Artist as a Young...pro wrestler? Yes. True! Lewin's first-hand look at pro wrestling and his role in this sport during the early 1950s are illustrated with photos as well as reproductions of some of Lewin's earliest sketches and paintings.
6) Bill Peet; An Autobiography (Houghton Mifflin, 1989) is probably well known to everyone...
7) and so are Jean Little's autobiographies Little by Little (1988) what an inspired title! - and Stars Come Out Within (1991) both published in the U.S.A. by Viking.
I could mention many other author or artist autobiographies, but how about you? Which ones come to your mind?
... Ginny
********************************************************************** Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St., Madison, WI 53706 USA
Received on Tue 28 May 1996 04:30:00 PM CDT
