From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:36:46 -0500

It's been great reading all of your comments about how children and teens select books, as well as what works (and what doesn't) to motivate young readers. Thanks to all of you who shared your insights on this.

Now it's time for us to change gears for the second half of October. We invite you to discuss the books of E. L. Konigsburg. Konigsburg is a prolific author whose first two children's novels ("Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth" and "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler") won the Newbery Medal and a Newbery Honor in the same year (1968).

In an interview transcript on the Scholastic home page, Konigsburg says of her writing style:

"I didn't even know I had one until I wrote Father's Arcane Daughter, and my editor said that this book was so different that she wished we could put it out under a pseudonym. But she said that my style was so distinct that people would recognize me! And until then, I had no idea I had a style!"

For readers, Konigsburg has one of the most recognizable styles in children's literature. What is it about her writing that makes it so distinctive?



Kathleen T. Horning, Director Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706

horning at education.wisc.edu Voice: 608&3721 Fax: 608&2I33 www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Mon 18 Oct 2004 02:36:46 PM CDT