Featured Author

Born November 30, 1874 New London, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Died April 24, 1942, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born November 30, 1874 in Clifton (later renamed New London) on Prince Edward Island in Canada into a family of thorough-going Scotch Presbyterians. Her mother, Clara Macneill Montgomery, died of tuberculosis at only twenty-three and when Maud was just short of two years old. Her father took to traveling extensively on business leaving Maud in the care of her maternal grandparents, strict, serious and dutiful more than effusive about taking in a high-spirited young girl. Her father moved to Saskatchewan (where he remarried) in western Canada in 1884 when Maud was only ten years old - between the death of her mother and the departure of father, Maud was left with a strong sensibility and sense of being an orphan.

I guess I should say right here that the circumstances of Montgomery's life are not that exotic. She grew up in a strict and not particularly emotive household but had much time of her own and an open environment to explore. She carved an independent path for herself writing but, duty bound, spent material chunks of her life caring for and nursing others.

She did not wed till she was thiry-six and then to a Presbyterian minister who had a somewhat checkered employment history. They moved to Toronto. She had two children. She wrote her first book, Anne of Green Gables, in 1908. Her contract was not very favorable but she rectified that in the future and became prosperous through her subsequent writings including nine further books charting the life of Anne.

There was a very large part of the Anne story which was either a recapitulation of Montgomery's own life and/or the aggregation of experiences of others with whom she was close.

There is nothing particularly remarkable in the circumstances of her life. There is much that is remarkable about the books that she wrote, their entry into the world and their continuing effect on readers today.

Anne began as a simple idea for one of the many magazine stories by which Montgomery earned money. Plucking through her writer's notebook, she came across an entry she had jotted down some years before "Elderly couple apply to orphan asylum for a boy. By mistake a girl is sent them." From this seedling of an idea, Montgomery nurtured first a brief tale, and then as she became fascinated by her own creation, extended it into a series of stories, incorporating many elements of her own life and people she knew. Deciding that a serialized magazine story just was not the vehicle for this girl she had created, she resolved that this would be her first book. She wrote Anne of Green Gables over 1904 and 1905. Having finished it to her satisfaction she sent it off to a number of publishers.

And was rejected. And rejected. And rejected again. She put the book aside for a couple of years. Looking at it with fresh eyes in 1907 she made some revisions, finalized the manuscript and sent it off to a publisher, L.C. Page, in Boston. Acceptance at last. Her first book, Anne of Green Gables, came out in 1908.

The effect of Anne of Greene Gables is something akin to a combination of Tom Sawyer (high-spirited out-doors child), Pippi Longstocking (red-headed mischievous girl), Jo of Little Women (independent girl whose life story is told over a series of books and captures the rhythms of family dynamics), and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series (girl in an open, frontier-like environment encompassing a life journey, romance and adventure).

Anne Shirley is an orphan. Orphaned at birth, at the beginning of the story she is eleven years old and her life has so far consisted of being let out to a series of indifferent families who view her as a temporary babysitter for their other children. Anne is inadvertently sent by the orphanage to an elderly brother and his sister (the Cuthberts) who had requested a boy to help them on their farm.

Anne, bubbling over with the spirit of life, full of imagination, seasoned with a quick temper, is a cyclone of disruption and breath of fresh air into the lives of the Cuthberts, their neighbors and everyone in the immediate vicinity. Perhaps her most notable attribute is an optimism so strong, a faith in a better future so unrelenting that it colors all her actions and shapes the narrative of her life.

Like many great children's stories, the Anne series operates at several levels which is in part why they are popular among both children and adults. In fact, Montgomery actually targeted her writing at adults as well as children and it is primarily with time that the Anne stories have come to be considered primarily children's stories.

The startling thing about the effect of Anne of Green Gables is two-fold. One is that a story written one hundred years ago this year, still reads in such a contemporary fashion. If you were to select a sampling of randomly picked children's books from 1908, most of them have a mustiness in their language and a stiltedness to the structure of the story-telling that jars and is something of a barrier to their endurance. Anne of Green Gables, like a handful of other enduring stories, reaches across the century and seems as fresh and accessible today as it did then.

The second aspect of Anne of Green Gables which is hard to comprehend is how quickly and how completely Anne spanned the globe. For example, a year after it's publication in North America, Anne of Green Gables was released in translation in Sweden in 1919 where it has remained a popular staple. The prolific and accomplished Swedish children's author, Astrid Lindgren has identified Montgomery's books as a major influence. Poland and France were two other countries in which a significant presence was established in these very early years. Even more curiously, leaping language and culture, Anne of Green Gables became a perennial and well established children's and young adult favorite in Japan with numerous fan clubs, discussion groups, and now web sites. She is such a staple that Japanese tourism to Prince Edwards Island to visit sites from Montgomery's childhood numbers in the thousands annually.

A century on, Anne is still well established in the English speaking world (particularly Canada, the USA, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand) as well as the above mentioned of fandom, Japan, France, Sweden and Poland. It is intriguing to me how quickly Anne of Green Gables established a presence around the globe in radically different cultures and has sustained that enduring appeal over a century.

While the Anne series of books are frequently stereotyped as "girls" books, and they are extremely popular among girls from eight or nine years through perhaps fifteen, these stories are enjoyed by boys as well when they get past the stereotype of being girls books. Just as girls can and do enjoy Tom Sawyer, boys can and do enjoy Anne; they just might not admit it.

There are ten books in the Anne Shirley series of books: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea , Chronicles of Avonlea, Anne of the Island , Anne's House of Dreams , Rainbow Valley , Further Chronicles of Avonlea: Which Have to Do with Many Personalities and Events in and about Avonlea , Rilla of Ingleside , Anne of Windy Poplars , and Anne of Ingleside . Montgomery wrote other series such as the Emily books, as well as collections of short stories and standalone novels. The other series drift in and out of print as do some of the standalone novels. The collections of short stories are mostly appreciated primarily by die-hard fans. Anne though, across the years and across language and cultures continues to capture and refresh hearts around the world.

Lucy Maude Montgomery passed away on April 24th, 1942 in Toronto, Ontario.

Independent Reader - The Anne of Green Gables Series

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Chronicles of Avonlea, in Which Anne Shirley of Green Gables and Avonlea Plays Some Part by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Rainbow Valley by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Further Chronicles of Avonlea: Which Have to Do with Many Personalities and Events in and about Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Independent Readers - All Other Books

The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Emily's Quest by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery Recommendation

Pat of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery Suggested

The Road to Yesterday (short stories) by L.M. Montgomery Suggested

The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery by L.M. Montgomery Suggested

Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories by L.M. Montgomery Suggested

Bibliography

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery 1908
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery 1909
Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery 1910
The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery 1911
Chronicles of Avonlea, in Which Anne Shirley of Green Gables and Avonlea Plays Some Part by L.M. Montgomery 1912
The Golden Road by L.M. Montgomery 1913
Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery 1915
The Watchman, and Other Poems by L.M. Montgomery 1916
Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery 1917
The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career by L.M. Montgomery 1917
Rainbow Valley by L.M. Montgomery 1919
Further Chronicles of Avonlea: Which Have to Do with Many Personalities and Events in and about Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery 1920
Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery 1921
Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery 1923
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery 1924
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery 1926
Emily's Quest by L.M. Montgomery 1927
Magic for Marigold by L.M. Montgomery 1927
A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery 1931
Pat of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery 1933
Courageous Women (biography) by L.M. Montgomery 1934
Mistress Pat: A Novel of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery 1935
Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery 1936
Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery 1937
Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery 1939
The Road to Yesterday (short stories) by L.M. Montgomery 1974
The Doctor's Sweetheart and Other Stories by L.M. Montgomery 1979
My Dear Mr. M.: Letters to G. B. MacMillan from L. M. Montgomery by L.M. Montgomery 1980
Spirit of Place: Lucy Maud Montgomery and Prince Edward Island by L.M. Montgomery 1982
The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery by L.M. Montgomery 1987
Akin to Anne: Tales of Other Orphans (short stories) by L.M. Montgomery 1988
Along the Shore: Tales by the Sea by L.M. Montgomery 1989
Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side by L.M. Montgomery 1990
Days of Dreams and Laughter: The Story Girl and Other Tales (includes The Story Girl, The Golden Road, and Kilmeny of the Orchard) by L.M. Montgomery 1990
After Many Days: Tales of Time Passed by L.M. Montgomery 1991
Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement by L.M. Montgomery 1993
Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories by L.M. Montgomery 1995
Across the Miles: Tales of Correspondence by L.M. Montgomery 1995
Rainbow Valley by L.M. Montgomery 1995
The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery 1996
The Green Gables Letters, from L. M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber by L.M. Montgomery 1905-1909
The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery, Volume 1: 1889-1910, Volume 2: 1910-1921 by L.M. Montgomery 1985-87.

Born December 24, 1880 in Arcola, Illinos
Died January 9, 1938 in Miami Springs, Florida

Johnny Gruelle is a TTMD poster child of the type of author we hope to bring to your attention. If you were to mention Raggedy Ann or Raggedy Andy to most people you would quite likely get a vague confirmation that they had heard the names. Even among the community of people generally interested in children's literature, however, many would not place Johnny Gruelle as the author and illustrator of that distinctly American classic, Raggedy Ann. Not the fate that you would expect for the author of a series of stories that have sold in the millions down through the years, and whose most memorable character, Raggedy, still inspires devotion among an intense group of collectors and readers. This year marks the ninetieth anniversary of the first publication of Raggedy Ann. But let's back up and tell the whole story, for it is an interesting one.

Johnny Gruelle was born Christmas Eve, 1880 in Arcalo, Illinois (home of the Raggedy Ann and Andy Museum). His father, R.B. Gruelle was a landscape artist and portrait painter, later associated with the Hoosier Group of Impressionist artists. One of three children, Johnny and his two siblings (Justin and Prudence) were all encouraged in artistic endeavors through their childhood. Justin became an illustrator and Prudence an author.

Johnny's formal education was somewhat truncated. Instead, he essentially served an artistic apprenticeship at his father's side: there was little formal training per se but rather, much encouragement. Neither R.B. Gruelle nor Johnny Gruelle actually ever received formal training in art, nor did Johnny seek instruction from his father.

Johnny Gruelle showed talent in the area of sketches and cartoons and launched his career as an illustrator when he was nineteen, joining a weekly newspaper, The Indianapolis People, drawing political cartoons. He worked there and at other Indianapolis papers over the next few years including the Indianapolis Sun and the Indianapolis Star. It was while at the Star that the fearsome productivity that characterized all Gruelle's working life became apparent.

Supposedly at the Star, an evening paper, staff cartoonists were tasked with producing their work first thing in the morning. As soon as they had completed their work they were allowed to leave. Gruelle, being a fast worker, basically produced all his work and left by midmorning. As always happens when someone is good at something, this productivity drew negative comment from his fellow cartoonists about the brevity of his hours and his editor asked Gruelle to stick around the offices until the others were done as well.

It was this idle time that diverted Gruelle into writing as a complement to his artistic work. He filled the hours of his confinement by beginning to write articles for the paper. He also began writing short stories for his infant daughter, Marcella, born in 1903.

Joining the Cleveland Press in 1905, Gruelle continued to earn his living through all forms of illustration but also began having articles and stories published in the paper's children's section.

In 1910, Gruelle visited his father who had moved to an artist colony in Connecticut not far from New York City. While visiting, he responded to a national contest run by the storied New York Herald for a comic strip. He in fact submitted two entries; one was entered under a pseudonym. His first entry was based on an elfish character he had created, Mr. Twee Deedle. With this entry, he won first prize. His other entry took second place. Following this win, Gruelle joined the Herald producing the Mr. Twee Deedle comic strip.

Gruelle and family moved east, settling in Connecticut near his father. It was at this time that Gruelle began to branch out beyond newspaper journalism and began producing illustrations and comic strips for the rich panoply of magazines serving the reading public in the 1910s and 1920s. In time he was to regularly produce work for a broad range of magazines ecompassing such titles as Good Housekeeping, Life, College Humor, Judge, Woman's World, John Martin's Book, McCall's, Physical Culture, Illustrated Sunday Magazine, and The Ladies World.

It was while at the Herald (where he stayed till 1921) that Gruelle became a published author with his first collection of comic strips completed in book form as Mr. Twee Deedle in 1913. More significantly in 1914, he produced a volume called The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, retold by Margaret Hunt and richly illustrated by Gruelle. The Complete Fairy Tales was a significant hit.

The story is told in many different versions but it would appear that it was around this time (1912-1914) that Gruelle's daughter, Marcella, while one day scrounging around her grandmother's attic, discovered a misshapen and well worn doll tucked away in some corner. It would appear that the doll was her grandmother's from her childhood. Marcella brought it to Gruelle who tidied it up a bit, painted on a new smile, put on some shiny black button eyes and a red triangle nose. Grandmother sewed a new dress. Raggedy Ann was born and became a constant companion of Marcella.

Gruelle apparently suggested the name of Raggedy Ann for the newly rediscovered doll based on a couple of poems by the poet James Witcomb Riley (who had been a friend of his father's), The Raggedy Man and Little Orphan Annie. He made up stories about Raggedy Ann to tell Marcella who was in poor health. Presciently he applied and received a design patent for the Raggedy Ann image with which we are all familiar.

Tragically, in 1917 in her early teens, Gruelle's daughter Marcella died from an infection contracted through a vaccination. Gruelle threw himself into capturing the Raggedy Ann stories which Marcella had so loved and in 1918 published Raggedy Ann Stories which became an instant hit. Proving that there is nothing new under the sun, Gruelle and family had decided to help the marketing of the book by making a number of Raggedy Ann dolls and selling those along with the books. The Raggedy Ann dolls were also an instant hit, not only fueling book sales but becoming a significant commercial side-line and establishing a basis for fans to this very day when early Raggedy Ann dolls can command prices in the hundreds and thousands of dollars.

From this point forwards, while he continued with his editorial cartoons, comic strips, etc. (in fact introducing another significant Sunday comic character "Brutus" in 1929), Johnny Gruelle focused the majority of his time and effort on churning out Raggedy Ann stories, later introducing her brother Raggedy Andy.

Raggedy Ann is a child's doll who comes to life, along with all the other dolls in the nursery, whenever there are no people around. She leads them through various doll adventures and traumas but everything always turns out for the best and there is almost always some embedded lesson for a child to take away from the story. There is just enough tension and excitement to grip a young child's attention but always a happy and secure ending. And most reassuringly, Raggedy Ann always has a sunny and cheery disposition.

Gruelle's motto and approach to writing for children was enduringly positive: "It is the Gruelle ideal that books for children should contain nothing to cause fright, suggest fear, glorify mischief, excuse malice or condone cruelty." Much like his contemporary, L.Frank Baum (The Wizard of Oz books), the writing skill reflected in the Raggedy Ann stories is not particularly sophisticated but it has a cadence and directness that has always appealed to children. These stories are great stories for a parent to read to a child. They are heavily illustrated, but there is a lot of text so they are not really early reader type books. By the time a child has mastered reading on his own, the story lines are often too simple to be especially attractive. But from four to ten years of age, these are great books to cuddle up with your kids and read aloud to them all the adventures of what the toys do when no-one is watching.

Gruelle apparently looked on the Raggedy Ann stories a little like a golden goose. He would write and illustrate Raggedy Ann stories and then stash them away in his closet and pull them out as he needed more income. Between the first appearance in 1918 and his death in 1938, Gruelle published seventeen Raggedy Ann and Andy stories (plus a further sixteen children's books not having to do with Raggedy Ann). A further twenty-five or so Raggedy Ann stories were released posthumously from the back of the closet.

The bibliography becomes somewhat murky at this point. One of Gruelle's sons, Worth Gruelle, carried on the family business of writing Raggedy Ann stories and now that some of the titles are out of copyright some publishers are releasing re-illustrated versions.

As was the case with recent Featured Authors L.Frank Baum and L.M. Montgomery who also wrote well-received books stretching into a series, the earlier books tend to be better than the later, though there are favorites scattered throughout the series. Interestingly, and also similar to L.Frank Baum, as popular and firmly rooted as these books are in the reading culture, the author Johnny Gruelle has received (and probably to his benefit) little academic attention. In fact, among the dozen or so textbooks that I most frequently reference, only one had an entry for Johnny Gruelle.

Other connections and parallels abound. It is interesting to compare Johnny Gruelle with Crockett Johnson (of Harold and the Purple Crayon fame) of the next generation who similarly ended up noted by everyone else as a children's author but always viewed himself primarily as an artist. Rachel Field wrote her wonderful story of a doll being handed down through the family, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, and won the 1930 Newberry Medal. Given the provenance of Raggedy Ann, was there any connection or inspiration from the Raggedy Ann Stories? I can't find any evidence for it but the parallels are close. Likewise, Margery Williams came out with her Velveteen Rabbit in 1922, just four years after Raggedy Ann. No clear connection but lots of parallels. Finally there is the similarity of ethos to that other wonderful Midwestern children's author, Robert McCloskey. McCloskey was also from the next generation of writers and his stories are not framed in the same way as Gruelle's but all of them (Lentil, Homer Price, The Centerburg Tales, etc.) have that same refreshing feel of cleanness, innocence and just plain goodness to them.

Enjoy sharing Raggedy Ann and her stories with your children.

Independent Reader

My Very Own Fairy Stories by Johnny Gruelle Suggested

Raggedy Andy Stories by Johnny Gruelle Highly Recommended

Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle Highly Recommended

The Paper Dragon by Johnny Gruelle Suggested

Bibliography

Mr. Twee Deedle by Johnny Gruelle 1913
Mr. Twee Deedle's Further Adventures by Johnny Gruelle 1914
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Margaret Hunt and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle 1914
The Travels of Timmy Toodles by Johnny Gruelle 1916
My Very Own Fairy Stories by Johnny Gruelle 1917
The Funny Little Book by Johnny Gruelle 1917
Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle 1918
Friendly Fairies by Johnny Gruelle 1919
Sunny Little Stories: The Singing Thread, The Way to Fairyland, Mrs. Goodluck Cricket by Johnny Gruelle 1919
Raggedy Andy Stories: Introducing the Little Rag Brother of Raggedy Ann by Johnny Gruelle 1920
Eddie Elephant by Johnny Gruelle 1921
Orphan Annie Story Book by Johnny Gruelle 1921
Johnny Mouse and the Wishing Stick by Johnny Gruelle 1922
The Magical Land of Noom by Johnny Gruelle 1922
Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees by Johnny Gruelle 1924
Raggedy Ann and Andy's Sunny Stories by Johnny Gruelle 1925
Raggedy Ann and Andy's Animal Friends by Johnny Gruelle 1925
Raggedy Ann and Andy's Merry Adventures by Johnny Gruelle 1925
Raggedy Ann's Alphabet Book by Johnny Gruelle 1925
Raggedy Ann's Wishing Pebble by Johnny Gruelle 1925
Beloved Belindy by Johnny Gruelle 1926
The Paper Dragon: A Raggedy Ann Adventure by Johnny Gruelle 1926
Wooden Willie by Johnny Gruelle 1927
Raggedy Ann's Magical Wishes by Johnny Gruelle 1928
The Cheery Scarecrow by Johnny Gruelle 1929
Marcella Stories by Johnny Gruelle 1929
A Mother Goose Parade by Johnny Gruelle 1929
Johnny Gruelle's Golden Book by Johnny Gruelle 1929
All about Story Book by Unknown and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle 1929
Raggedy Ann in the Deep, Deep Woods by Johnny Gruelle 1930
Raggedy Ann's Sunny Songs by Johnny Gruelle 1930
Raggedy Ann in Cookie Land by Johnny Gruelle 1931
Raggedy Ann's Lucky Pennies by Johnny Gruelle 1932
Raggedy Ann in the Golden Meadow by Johnny Gruelle 1935
Raggedy Ann and the Left-handed Safety Pin by Johnny Gruelle 1935
Bam Bam Clock by Joseph P. McEvoy and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle 1936
Raggedy Ann's Joyful Songs by Johnny Gruelle 1937
Raggedy Ann in the Magic Book by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Worth Gruelle 1939
Raggedy Ann and the Laughing Brook by Johnny Gruelle 1940
Raggedy Ann Helps Grandpa Hoppergrass by Johnny Gruelle 1940
Raggedy Ann in the Garden by Johnny Gruelle 1940
Raggedy Ann and the Hoppy Toad by Johnny Gruelle 1940
Raggedy Ann and the Golden Butterfly by Johnny Gruelle 1940
The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees by Johnny Gruelle 1941
Raggedy Ann Goes Sailing by Johnny Gruelle 1941
Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Nice Fat Policeman by Johnny Gruelle 1942
Raggedy Ann and Betsy Bonnet String by Johnny Gruelle 1943
Raggedy Ann and Andy by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Julian Wehr 1944
Raggedy Ann in the Snow White Castle by Johnny Gruelle 1946
Raggedy Ann and the Slippery Slide by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Ethel Hays 1947
Raggedy Ann's Mystery by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Ethel Hays 1947
Raggedy Ann's Adventure by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Ethel Hays 1947
Raggedy Ann at the End of the Rainbow by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Ethel Hays 1947
Raggedy Ann's Merriest Christmas by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Tom Sinnickson 1952
Raggedy Ann and Marcella's First Day at School by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Tom Sinnickson 1952
Raggedy Ann's Surprise by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Tom Sinnickson 1953
Raggedy Ann's Tea Party by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by George and Irma Wilde 1954
Raggedy Ann and the Hobby Horse by Johnny Gruelle 1961
Raggedy Ann and the Wonderful Witch by Johnny Gruelle 1961
Raggedy Ann and the Golden Rings by Johnny Gruelle 1961
Raggedy Ann and the Happy Meadow by Johnny Gruelle 1961
Raggedy Ann and the Kindly Rag Man by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by John E. Hopper 1975
Raggedy Ann and Andy and Witchie Kissaby by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by John E. Hopper 1975
More Raggedy Ann and Andy Stories by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by Johnny Worth and Justin Gruelle 1977
The Raggedy Ann and Andy Storybook by Johnny Gruelle and illustrated by June Goldsborough 1980
The Old Fashioned Raggedy Ann and Andy ABC Book by Robert Kraus 1981
The Little Book of Values: Moral Fables by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards 1996

Born August 9th, 1899 in Queensland, Australia
Died April 23rd, 1996 in London, UK

Life is full of odd little conundrums and puzzles that just never quite add up. P.L. Travers' life and works is an example of this and prompts a couple of questions. How did a girl from a small bushtown, born-and-bred Australian of Irish descent, end up creating a character, Mary Poppins, that is right up there in the pantheon of quintessentially British icons along with Big Ben, blue uniformed bobbies with bee-hive helmets, and marmalade on toast? And just how did this Haight Ashbury-like bohemian writer of quirky stories, student of eastern religions and philosophies, hard-headedly negotiate with a major studio such as Disney so that she had authorial control over the movie script and was paid a fortune at the same time?

Pamela Lyndon Travers is actually a stage name. Helen Lyndon Goff was born August 9th, 1899 in a small bush town in southeastern Queensland, Australia. Her father was a local bank branch manager, hard drinking but a family man. Tragically, he died when Travers was only seven. For a short period she was left as the oldest of three children (all girls), trying to cope with a dysfunctional, grieving and suicidal mother while looking after the young ones as well. She was rescued from this difficult position by a crusty but gold-hearted maiden aunt who brought her to Sydney for schooling. Some have speculated that Great Aunt Ellie served in part as a model for Mary Poppins.

During her later school years, Travers began writing short articles and verse for local papers. After graduating she continued writing but also began pursuing a career on the stage. She joined Shakespearean troop, touring Australia and New Zealand. It was while in New Zealand that she began having more substantive articles accepted by major papers such as The Bulletin and The Triad in Australia as well as some of the New Zealand papers.

At twenty-five, she decided the Antipodes was too small a canvas for her ambitions, purchased a ticket on a steamship to the UK and moved to the British Isles, returning only once for a visit to her native land some forty years later.

As a child, Travers had shown a vivid imagination and interest in story-telling and books. Her father had told her old Irish folktales as many wonderful family stories of their antecedents in Ireland, which turned out to be engaging because of their fancy rather than their accuracy. Dublin was Travers' first destination on arriving in the British Isles and she struck up a mentor relationship with the great Irish poet and critic known as AE, George William Russell. Russell served as Travers' portal into the higher echelons of British intellectual and cultural circles in the 1920's and 1930's with introductions to Yeats and others. Travers initially supported herself by writing and sending back articles and stories to the papers and magazines in Australia and New Zealand (it was in the Christchurch Sun in which Mary Poppins made her first appearance in a short story in 1926), but quickly established a writing niche among the British papers as well.

Travers clearly had a penchant for carving out her own path, taking advantage of the circumstances in which she found herself but remaining somewhat independent as well. While smack in the middle of the Bloomsbury set, and as much a flaunter of tradition as they, she made her own decisions that as often as not reflected a very independent character and cast of mind.

She never married but, wanting a family, adopted an Irish orphan. She was from all appearances a good mother but oddly never told her child that he was adopted, nor, perhaps more critically, that he was in fact one of a pair of twins. It was only when his twin tracked him down in London when he was nineteen that he discovered any of this.

Travers was intensely interested in myths, legends, Jungian symbols, etc. Sometime in the 1930's she came into the circle of what might now be known as a guru or spiritual advisor, George Gurdjieff, who was clearly, even at that time, something of a charlatan but who none-the-less attracted quite an enduring following among sophisticated and affluent people. She became a frequent contributor and consulting editor of Parabola, this group's quarterly literary and philosophical magazine in 1976 when it was founded.

Travers only wrote twenty-one books across her very long life of ninety-six years. Her first book Moscow Excursion came out in 1934 following a trip to the Soviet Union, then still seeming so new, a breath of fresh air and promise and exercising such fascination for Europe's chattering classes.

It was in that same year that she also published the first of a series of books that would make up the bulk of her work, starring the iconic English nanny, Mary Poppins.

For those of you that only know Mary Poppinsfrom the Disney movie, it is important to point out that this is an instance where the book and the movie are related but independent works of art. In the reading community, it is not uncommon to instinctively disparage any movie rendering of a beloved book. And in many instances the criticism is well deserved, it is a huge challenge, most often not met, to transfer the complexity and subtlety of a book to the brevity of a movie.

I think in this instance though, there is one of those successes that do come along. I can think of three right away that have a similar background and outcome: Mary Poppins, Doctor Dolittle, and The Wizard of Oz. In each of these instances there is an established series of books well loved by readers. In each case, the movie version hews reasonably closely to the broad outline of the books but usually draws most heavily on the first book or couple of books in the series. In each case, the resulting movie is a masterpiece of entertainment, absorbs like a chameleon the broad picture of the books, but is also distinctively different from the books. They are not faithful translations of the books form page to screen but rather the books trigger or function as a muse to a new art object.

In the case of Mary Poppins, the movie captures some of the whimsy and sense of magic with which Travers infused her books but it misses much of the hard edged characterization with which Travers made her books "real". As opposed to the pretty and estimable Julie Andrews version, Mary Poppins in the books is vain, sometimes almost capricious and somewhat hard edged in a way that never makes it into the movie. But it works in the book.

Mary Poppinsis the story of an apparently magical nanny that comes to bring order out of the chaos of the Banks family and the five children of which it is comprised. Mrs. Banks is a flibbertigibbet, loving but little involved in the lives of her children and the management of her household. Mr. Banks is a bank clerk wholly absorbed in his career. Mary Poppins brings magic into the lives of the children in a very structured and disciplined way though it is often never perfectly clear whether the magical things really occurred or only that the children think that they did.

Despite her quirks, the children quickly come to love Mary Poppins and are anxious that she should never leave. Mary Poppins famously commits only that "I'll stay till the wind changes." She does eventually leave when the wind turns but she has accomplished her goal of reconnecting the children to their parents. It doesn't take much to look at the Mary Poppinsnarrative and see some of Travers' own childhood with the loss of her father at an early age and the effective disengagement of her mother from family life.

Travers wrote a further two Mary Poppinsstories, Mary Poppins Comes Back in 1935, and Mary Poppins Opens the Door in 1943. At the close of Mary Poppins Opens the Door , she is gone forever. Gone, perhaps, but not forgotten. Her fans clamored for more Mary Poppins stories and over the next fifty years, periodically Travers would release a new Mary Poppins book, sometimes light-weight books that elaborated on particular episodes from within the context of the initial three books, sometimes themed works such as Mary Poppins in the Kitchen which is essentially a child's cook book, to further novels such as Mary Poppins in the Park which capture additional, overlooked tales again from within the original story structure set by the first three books. Distinct from other series such as the Wizard of Oz, in which the quality of writing becomes much more variable in the later books, all the Mary Poppinsbooks are well written; deepening and broadening with additional books rather than running to anemia.

As a side note, it is interesting that from the very beginning, the Mary Poppinsstories were illustrated by Mary Shepard, daughter of E.H. Shepard, illustrator of that other great British icon, Winnie the Pooh. Shepard and Travers collaborated on every Mary Poppins book over the next fifty-five years.

One of Mary Poppins' early fans was Walt Disney's eleven year old daughter, Diane. Seeing her engagement with the Mary Poppinsstories, Disney pursued discussions and negotiations with Travers over the next twenty years or so. Travers was jealously protective of her cast of characters and demanded editing power over the transcript, demanded that the rendition to film should be as a movie and not as a cartoon and worked hard to keep the story true to her books. She also negotiated a payment of $100,000 ($680,000 in today's dollars) plus 5% of the gross profits of the film.

While she made very much a point of disparaging the final product (somewhat belied by her frequent viewings of the movie), I would argue that both her books and Walt Disney's rendering are wonderful gifts to the world of a child and that while they are clearly related, they accomplish two different outcomes. Travers' books have a little bit of the Brother's Grimm to them - part of why children engage with them so readily is not only because they are magical and funny but that these attributes are set in the context of real children's fears of loss and abandonment which give the books a level of emotional engagement and reality much exceeding that in the movie which is fun and enchanting but entertains wonderfully rather than touches a child deeply.

Travers wrote a review of The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell in the New York Times, November 21, 1965. The final paragraph of that review could as well stand for her view of her own creation.

Is it a book for children? I would say Yes because for me all books are books for children. There is no such thing as a children's book. There are simply books of many kinds and some of them children read. I would deny, however, that it was written for children. But is any book that these creatures love really invented for them? "I write to please myself," said Beatrix Potter, all her natural modesty and arrogance gathered into the noble phrase. Indeed, whom else, one could rightly ask. And this book bears the same hallmark. Someone, in love with an idea, has lovingly elaborated it simply to please himself -- no ax to grind, making no requirements, just putting a pinch of salt on its tail -- as one would with a poem -- and setting it down in words. How, therefore, could a child -- and children come in all ages, remember -- fail to read and enjoy it?

Travers wrote a half dozen or so other stories and extended monographs around myths, legends, symbols, and folktales. She received an OBE in 1977 and passed away in 1996, three years after publishing her final book, What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story.

Independent Reader

Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard Highly Recommended

Mary Poppins Comes Back by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard Highly Recommended

Mary Poppins from A to Z by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard Recommended

Mary Poppins in the Kitchen by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard Suggested

Mary Poppins in the Park by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard Recommended

Mary Poppins Opens the Door by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard & Agnes Sims Highly Recommended

Bibliography

Moscow Excursion by P.L. Travers 1934
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1934
Mary Poppins Comes Back by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1935
Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1937
Happy Ever After by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1940
I Go by Sea, I Go by Land by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Gertrude Hermes 1941
Mary Poppins Opens the Door by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Agnes Sims and Mary Shepard 1943
Mary Poppins in the Park by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1952
The Gingerbread Shop by P.L. Travers 1952
Mr. Wiggs Birthday Party by P.L. Travers 1952
Stories from Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers 1952
The Magic Compass by P.L. Travers 1953
The Fox at the Manger by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Thomas Bewick 1962
Mary Poppins from A to Z by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1962
Friend Monkey by P.L. Travers 1971
Mary Poppins in the Kitchen by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1975
About Sleeping Beauty by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Charles Keeping 1975
Two Pairs of Shoes by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon 1980
Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1982
Mary Poppins and the House Next Door by P.L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard 1989
What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story by P.L. Travers 1993

Born September 19, 1894 in New York City, New York
Died March 15, 1942 in Beverly Hills, California

Rachel Field was a wonderfully eclectic writer with an established record in several genres. While today she is remembered primarily for her children's books and her poetry, at the time of her death, one of her recently released novels for adults had sold several hundred thousand copies.

Born Rachel Lyman Field, in New York City, Field was raised in Stockbridge, and then later, Springfield Massachusetts. For any parent despairing of when their child will begin to demonstrate talent, Field's autobiographical entry in the The Junior Book of Authors should be reassuring.

It is humiliating to confess that I wasn't one of those children who are remembered by their old school teachers as clever and promising. I was notably lazy and behind others of my own age in everything except drawing pictures, acting in plays, and committing pieces of poetry to memory. I was more than ten years old before I could read, tho for some strange reason (that is perhaps significant now) I could write, after a fashion.

The first ten years of my life were uneventful, tho pleasant, and I spent them in the little town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where I learned to like below-zero weather and to find all sorts of growing wild things, such as arbutus in spring, wild strawberries in summer, and fringed gentians in the early fall. I didn't have many playmates my own age, but I managed to pick up a lot about trees and flowers and animals and outdoor things without the help of organized nature-walks and Girl Scout activities.

The little country school I went to, with about a dozen other pupils, was kept by two dear old ladies. I was a trial to the one who taught arithmetic, reading, spelling, and geography, but a favorite of the one who taught us poetry and planned plays for us to act. These were often quite ambitious, and the peak of my dramatic career was the year I was nine and played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at Christmas and the leading role in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (dramatized by the same teacher) in June. I couldn't read then but the parts were read aloud to me and I knew all the other children's lines as well as my own long before the dress-rehearsals. Of course I decided then and there to become a great actress.

The next year my mother felt that something really had to be done about my education, for it certainly looked as if I were going to grow up illiterate. So we moved to Springfield, in another part of Massachusetts, and I was plunged into public school life. It was a good deal of a come-down after playing leading parts in theatricals, to discover that I was way behind my age in the more important branches of learning.

I never did catch up with my age in school work, and I never liked studying again till I got to college. I was still able to hold my own in drawing and in writing compositions, and I'm afraid I made use of this to get other scholars to trade arithmetic answers and grammatical parsings for compositions. It was always easy for me to write half a dozen papers, or poems when we began to have them for homework assignments later on. Sometimes it was a little trying when the teacher liked one I had written for some other pupil better than the one I had handed in for myself.

Despite her self-described atrocious academic career, Field did graduate high-school and then was accepted, supposedly as a special student, into Radcliff. It was while pursuing her English studies at Radcliff that she began writing children's plays, some of which were produced at that time and many of which were later collected and published in book form in 1918. In fact, her entire output, from her first publication in 1918, with one exception, until 1924, was completely made up of plays written for children to perform. These became standards in schools for many years and were in annual production in schools across the country through the twenties, thirties and forties.

The one exception was a book published in 1923, Punch and Robinetta by Ethel May Gate and illustrated by Rachel Field. Field was something of an anomaly among author/illustrators in that she was a writer first and foremost and only occasionally illustrated whereas most author/illustrators start from the illustration end of the spectrum first and then move into writing. She illustrated nearly a dozen of her own books as well as a handful for such authors as Eleanor Farjeon and Margery Williams Bianco. One of her preferred forms of illustration was black paper silhouette cut-outs.

It was for her writing, however, that she is principally remembered. Field is one of the more heavily anthologized authors of children's poetry. She published her first collection of poems, The Pointed People: Verses and Silhouettes, in 1924 and released new collections of poetry every two or three years up to the year before her death in 1942.

Her poetry, while thought of as poetry for children, is, I think, best thought of as good poetry suitable for everyone but especially accessible to children. Her poetry is usually only a few stanzas. It hangs on crystallizing observations that are often so characteristic of how children see the world. Many of her poems were set in New England, where she summered each year.

If Once You Have Slept On An Island
Rachel Field

If once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,
You may bustle about in street and shop
You may sit at home and sew,
But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.

You may chat with the neighbors of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep.
Oh! you won't know why and you can't say how
Such a change upon you came,
But once you have slept on an island,
You'll never be quite the same.

Sometimes, I am not especially wild about the poem as a whole but there are individual lines that are memorable and call up recollections of youth, as in the highlighted lines in this poem.

Barefoot Days
Rachel Field

In the morning, very early,
That's the time I love to go
Barefoot where the fern grows curly
And grass is cool between each toe,
On a summer morning-O!
On a summer morning!

That is when the birds go by
Up the sunny slopes of air,
And each rose has a butterfly
Or a golden bee to wear;
And I am glad in every toe--
Such a summer morning-O!
Such a summer morning!

As is obvious from these examples, she frequently based her poems in a country setting and around nature themes. Among my favorites is The Wild Geese.

Something Told the Wild Geese Rachel Field

Something told the wild geese
It was time to go.
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered,--"Snow."

Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,
But beneath warm feathers
Something cautioned,--"Frost."

All the sagging orchards
Steamed with amber spice,
But each wild breast stiffened
At remembered ice.

Something told the wild geese
It was time to fly,--
Summer sun was on their wings,
Winter in their cry.

Rachel Field, in both her children's and her adult writings, mined historical settings and tales, particularly those set in New England. The two children's stories for which she is principally known and which have entered the canon of children's literature are Hitty: Her First Hundred Years and Calico Bush.

Hitty is the story of a doll and her adventures and travels across a century. Rachel Field and the illustrator of the story, Dorothy P. Lathrop, discovered a wooden doll in an antique store and built up the story based on a speculative discussion about her the journeys that might have brought her to the New York antique store in which they found her. You can see how the marriage of travels and adventures attached to the framework of a child's favorite toy and answering the question of every child, "what happened before" would be a recipe of success. Indeed it was, winning Field the 1930 Newberry Medal.

Two years later, Field published Calico Bush, a story of the New England frontier, set in Maine in the 1740's. While a winner of a Newbery Honor for 1932 and more robustly praised by critics than Hitty, it is her first success - Hitty - which still attracts the larger readership.

Through the 1930's, Field published two or three works a year across the genres of children's plays, poetry, and children's stories. Time out of Mind, a novel for adults, was published in 1935 and she wrote a further three novels for adults in her remaining years.

Try Hitty and Calico Bush; I think you will enjoy them either as stories to read to your children or as books for them to read on their own. But don't forget her poetry which can be found in any of the significant anthologies of children's poetry.

Picture Books

Grace For An Island Meal by Rachel Field and illustrated by Cynthia Jabar Pedestrian

Prayer for a Child by Rachel Field and illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones Recommended

Intermediate Reader

Calico Bush by Rachel Field and illustrated by Allen Lewis Recommended

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field and illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop Highly Recommended

Young Adult

All This and Heaven Too by Rachel Field Suggested

Rachel Field Bibliography

Rise up, Jennie Smith: A Play in One Act by Rachel Field 1918
Three Pills in a Bottle by Rachel Field 1918
Time Will Tell by Rachel Field 1920
The Fifteenth Candle by Rachel Field 1921
Cinderella Married by Rachel Field 1922
Punch and Robinetta by Ethel May Gate and illustrated by Rachel Field 1923
Columbine in Business by Rachel Field 1924
Theories and Thumbs by Rachel Field 1924
The Patchwork Quilt by Rachel Field 1924
Wisdom Teeth by Rachel Field 1924
Six Plays by Rachel Field 1924
The Pointed People: Verses and Silhouettes by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1924
An Alphabet for Boys and Girls by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1926
Eliza and the Elves by Rachel Field and illustrated by Elizabeth MacKinstry 1926
Taxis and Toadstools: Verses and Decorations by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1926
The Magic Pawnshop: A New Year's Eve Fantasy by Rachel Field and illustrated by Elizabeth MacKinstry 1927
The Cross-Stitch Heart and Other Plays by Rachel Field 1927
A Little Book of Days by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1927
The White Cat, and Other Old French Fairy Tales by Rachel Field and illustrated by Elizabeth MacKinstry 1928
Little Dog Toby by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1928
Polly Patchwork by Rachel Field and illustrated by Margaret Freeman 1928
Come Christmas by Eleanor Farjeon and illustrated by Rachel Field 1928
American Folk and Fairy Tales by Rachel Field and illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop 1929
Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field 1929
Pocket-Handkerchief Park by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1929
Patchwork Plays by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1930
A Circus Garland by Rachel Field 1930
Points East: Narratives of New England by Rachel Field 1930
Calico Bush by Rachel Field and illustrated by Allen Lewis 1931
The Yellow Shop by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1931
The House That Grew Smaller by Margery Williams Bianco and illustrated by Rachel Field 1931
The Bird Began to Sing by Rachel Field and illustrated by Ilse Bischoff 1932
Hepatica Hawks by Rachel Field and illustrated by Allen Lewis 1932
Just across the Street by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1933
Fortune's Caravan (adaptation of a work by Lily-Jean Javal from a translation by Marion Sanders) by Rachel Field and illustrated by Maggie Salcedo 1933
Branches Green by Rachel Field and illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop 1934
Susanna B. and William C. by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1934
God's Pocket: The Story of Captain Samuel Hadlock, Junior, of Cranberry Isles Maine (fictionalized biography) by Rachel Field 1934
Time out of Mind by Rachel Field 1935
People from Dickens: A Presentation of Leading Characters from the Books of Charles Dickens by Rachel Field and illustrated by Thomas Fogarty 1935
Fear Is the Thorn by Rachel Field 1936
First Class Matter: A Comedy in One Act by Rachel Field 1936
To See Ourselves by Rachel Field 1937
The Bad Penny by Rachel Field 1938
All This and Heaven Too by Rachel Field 1938
Ave Maria: An Interpretation from Walt Disney's "Fantasia" Inspired by the Music of Franz Schubert by Rachel Field 1940
All through the Night by Rachel Field and illustrated by Shirley Hughes 1940
Christmas Time: Verses and Illustrations by Rachel Field and illustrated by Rachel Field 1941
And Now Tomorrow by Rachel Field 1942
Prayer for a Child by Rachel Field and illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones 1944
Christmas in London by Rachel Field 1946
The Sentimental Scarecrow (one-act) by Rachel Field 1957
Poems by Rachel Field 1957
The Rachel Field Story Book by Rachel Field and illustrated by Adrienne Adams 1958
Poems for Children by Rachel Field and illustrated by Lynette Hemmant 1978
General Store by Rachel Field and illustrated by Giles Laroche 1988
A Road Might Lead to Anywhere by Rachel Field 1990
If Once You Have Slept on an Island by Rachel Field and illustrated by Iris Van Rynbach 1993
Grace for an Island Meal by Rachel Field and illustrated by Cynthia Jabar 2006

Born October 23, 1897 in Greenport, New York
Died August 29, 1958

Marjorie Flack, was a trifecta author/illustrator - she wrote or illustrated three classic children's books under three different scenarios. All three remain well-known and well-loved today. She was both the author and illustrator of the Angus books, the author of The Story About Ping which was illustrated by Kurt Weise; and the illustrator of DubOse Heyward's classic tale, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes as told to Jenifer. Her life story was not particularly out of the ordinary, but the stories she wrote were.

Story telling was part of her make-up from an early age. As she relates in Junior Book of Authors

Greenport was a beautiful place for a little girl to grow up in. There were beaches of white sand on the Bay and beaches with rock cliffs on the Sound and there was a stretch of woods to walk to where one could find wild flowers and tadpoles and things like that. But when I was very young I can remember being quite sad because as much as I looked I could never find an elf in any of these places.

As far back as I can remember pictures and stories were always an important part of my life. I can remember drawing pictures in the sand, pictures on the walls (and being punished for it) and pictures on every piece of paper I could find. For every picture there would be a story, even before I could write. Most of my pictures and stories were about beautiful princesses and queens and kings and fairies and elves. It was not until I was very much older that I began to notice that there were many things all about me to make drawings of, and that every day things were happening which were as exciting and as wonderful as in any fairy story.

Flack studied art at eighteen at the Art Students League in New York City. It was while studying art that she met the artist Karl Larsson whom she married in 1919 when she was twenty-two. Her first, and only child, a daughter, Hilma, was born the next year in 1920.

As I so often find when researching these Featured Author essays, the experience of parenthood was a major catalyst for Marjorie Flack, both in terms of the decision to write children's stories and the choice of what to write about. In Flack's case, she did not publish her first book until 1928. This book was a collaboration with her friend, Helen Lomen, who had been born and raised in Nome, Alaska. Taktuk; An Arctic Boy is the tale of a traditional Eskimo boy growing up and finding a balance between the modern and traditional worlds. This was one of the very first books about Eskimo children written (and illustrated) specifically for children.

She followed this with an equally well regarded story, All Around the Town: The Story of a Boy in New York, published in 1929. All Around Town is the tale of a boy's ordinary adventures in the extraordinary city of New York, featuring the many aspects of city living best loved by Flack and her daughter Hilma.

It was in 1930, with her third book, Angus and the Ducks, that Flack minted the first of four golden masterpieces. In continuous print for nearly eighty years, this is the tale of Angus, a Scottish terrier and the first in a series of three Angus books, Angus and the Ducks (1930), Angus and the Cat (1931), and Angus Lost (1932). The first tale was based on, as Flack said "a real dog and real ducks." The next two were fictional compilations based on actual events. Interestingly, in researching Angus and the Ducks, Flack became fascinated with the Peking Ducks she used as her subjects in her illustrations of the story and this fascination led to a further story, The Story About Ping, a couple of years later.

In the Angus books, Flack is both the author and illustrator. What has made them enduringly appealing to young children is that the illustrations are simple without being simplistic, the stories are very straightforward and concrete, and that the issues (encountering something new, accommodating others and making new friends in your life, and getting lost) are all very pertinent to young lives. In 1932, Flack also published another long time favorite among children, Ask Mr. Bear a story which she made up for her daughter and to which her daughter contributed over numerous retellings.

Perhaps Flack's most popular story of all, The Story About Ping, came out in 1933. The story relates the adventures of a punishment adverse duckling, Ping. Ping is a young Peking Duck, living with "his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins" on a "wise-eyed boat" on the Yangtze River. Each evening, the ducks are herded back on to the boat, the last duck receiving a whack on his rump. One evening, being somewhat tardy, Ping realizes that he will be the last on board and is entirely unwilling to be the recipient of said whack. He escapes onto the river where he encounters many unpleasant adventures such that when he finds the opportunity to return to his home boat he is relieved to do so and cares not a whit about being whacked for being the last duck back on the boat. The enduring popularity of this story probably can be traced to the simple but engaging story-telling of Flack, the beautiful watercolors of Kurt Weise, the glimpse into an alien land and culture (China) and resonant but unstated moral of the story; no matter how unfair you might think home life might be, it is better than the alternative. In this instance, Flack wrote the story, but asked Kurt Weise, who had lived in China for a number of years, to do the illustrations. With Ping, Flack concluded a remarkable string of five books in the space of four years that have been in almost continuous print since they were first published. But she was by no means done.

Over the next several years, Flack published three or four children's books a year. Her next popular story was in Wait for William in 1935, no longer in print, but long a favorite and describing the predicaments arising from a boy and his struggles to tie his shoes. William is a little boy, left behind by the older children as he struggles to tie his shoes, but whose separation eventually allows him to have the best seat in the parade atop the leading elephant.

Walter the Lazy Mouse (1937) is unfortunately out of print but is frequently mentioned by people as a favorite of their childhood. Walter, based on a real mouse in Flack's studio, tells the story of the evolution of a chronic procrastinator into an attentive, prompt mouse.

In 1939, Flack collaborated with the famous lyricist/composer DuBose Heyward to produce The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes, as told to Jenifer. Attending a conference, Flack one evening overheard Heyward relating a story that he had made up for his daughter, Jenifer. Enchanted, Flack suggested that he should write down the story and she would illustrate it. Heyward produced the text in two hours and Flack then illustrated the tale.

The Country Bunny is a variation of the Easter Bunny tale; however, in this version, Grandfather Easter Bunny needs to select a new rabbit to be one of his five Easter Bunnies who delivers eggs to children around the world and who wears the Little Golden Shoes. Despite the mockery of the more obvious contestants for the role, and despite being the mother of 21 little bunnies, the country bunny, wins the role through her own persistence and with the help and obedience of her well behaved children. This is a great story for reinforcing the importance of never letting go of a dream. Despite having many other stories that he told his young daughter, this was the only one Heyward set to paper and he died within a year of its publication.

Flack wrote nearly a dozen other books before her final one in 1948. The penultimate title, The Boats on the River, a 1947 Caldecott Honor Book, is another one that is unfortunately out of print but frequently mentioned among "Best of All Time . . . " lists.

Although Flack was a good story teller and a good artist, she was not an outstanding practitioner in either field. When she had a good story to tell, as with Angus, she told it well. Her enduring success must be laid in part at the door of superior collaboration. She married twice and across her many books, she authored, illustrated, or collaborated with both her first and then later her second husband, her daughter, her son-in-law and others such as DuBose Heyward.

All her books in print are well worth having in your library and are particularly appropriate as stories to read to your children.

Picture Books

Angus and the Cat by Marjorie Flack Recommended

Angus and the Ducks by Marjorie Flack Recommended

Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack Recommended

Ask Mr. Bear by Marjorie Flack Rcommended

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward and illustrated by Marjorie Flack Highly Recommended

The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and illutrated by Kurt Weise Highly Recommended

Bibliography

Taktuk: An Arctic Boy by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1928
All Around the Town: The Story of a Boy in New York by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1929
Angus and the Ducks by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1930
Knights, Goats, and Battleships: A Story from the Island of Malta by Terry Strickland Colt and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1930
Angus and the Cat by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1931
Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1932
Ask Mr. Bear by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1932
The Story about Ping by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1933
Wag-Tail Bess by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1933
Humphrey: One Hundred Years along the Wayside with a Box Turtle by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1934
Tim Tadpole and the Great Bullfrog by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1934
Scamper: The Bunny Who Went to the White House by Anna Roosevelt Dall and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1934
Dall Scamper's Christmas: More about the White House Bunny by Anna Roosevelt Dall and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1934
Christopher by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1935
Topsy and Angus and the Cat by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1935
Topsy by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1935
Up in the Air by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Karl Larsson 1935
Wait for William by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Flack and Richard A. Holberg 1935
What to Do about Molly by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Flack and K. Larsson 1936
Willy Nilly by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1936
Here, There, and Everywhere by Dorothy Keeley Aldis and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1936
Lucky Little Lena by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1937
The Restless Robin by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1937
Walter, the Lazy Mouse by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1937
William and His Kitten by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1938
The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, as Told to Jenifer by DuBose Heyward and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1939
Marionettes: Easy to Make, Fun to Use by Edith F. Ackley and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1939
(With Karl Larsson) Pedro by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by K. Larsson 1940
A Black Velvet Story by Dee Smith and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1940
Olaf, Lofoten Fisherman by Constance Nygaard Schram and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1940
Adolphus; or The Adopted Dolphin and the Pirate's Daughter by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1941
I See a Kitty by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Hilma Larsson 1943
The New Pet by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Marjorie Flack 1943
Neighbors on the Hill by Marjorie Flack and With Mabel O'Donnell and illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes 1943
Away Goes Jonathan Wheeler by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by H. Larsson 1944
The Boats on the River by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Jay Hyde Barnum 1946
Happy Birthday Letter by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Jay Hyde Barnum 1947