Featured Author

Born November 2, 1920 in Toronto, Canada

Margaret Bloy Graham is a Canadian author/illustrator most famous for a series of picture books that she illustrated and her husband authored in the 1950's and 1960's. Graham was born November 2, 1920 in Toronto, Canada. Her father was a medical doctor and her mother a nurse and she had a single brother. Graham was a true daughter of the Anglophone. She was raised in Ontario, but often spent summers either with her grandfather in Britain or with an aunt in the USA.

She indicated in her autobiographical entry of More Junior Authors that:

As a child, reading meant more to me than drawing, and when I grew older, reading became my favorite pastime.

When I was ten, we moved back to Toronto where I went to the Saturday morning classes at the art gallery. There we were never told how to draw, but were encouraged to draw things as we felt them. While in high school, I went to art classes taught by a sympathetic and encouraging teacher, and, as a result, my interest in sketching and painting grew.

After high school I went to the University of Toronto and majored in art history, with the vague idea of museum work or teaching as a career. I never considered I might become an artist until one summer when I worked in the display department of a large store. The artists working there were encouraged to paint freely and expressively. It was exciting to do big canvases and for the first time I began to think of myself as a creative artist.

It is interesting what a role local large department stores used to play in the artistic community. In doing these essays for the past year or so, I think I must have come across three or maybe four illustrators who at some point or another in their early careers, pulled a stint in large local department stores doing window displays and other creative presentations. It speaks volumes of a past, more localized age.

After graduating from University, Graham came to New York City to pursue her artistic studies for a summer and then ended up deciding to stay there. As often happens in an artistic career, the first few years were uncertain steps of artistic development melded with the practical need to earn money. She worked as a silk screen apprentice, worked for a printing company, and then in World War II worked as a naval draftsman. Later she was able to work in the art department of a fashion magazine before striking out into the uncertain world of free-lance work. She was successful in this endeavor and worked for such notable national magazines as Vogue, Glamour, Town and Country, House and Garden, and Seventeen.

While working for the Conde Nast magazine group, she met her future husband and collaborator, Gene Zion. They married in 1948 and later divorced in 1968. Graham subsequently married again in 1972 to a ship's officer, Oliver W. Homes. Gene Zion passed away in 1975.

New York in the 1940's and 50's had some sort of magic. Filled with nooks and crannies from the repeated waves of immigration over the prior sixty years and yet in many ways having some of the dynamics of a small town.

The intricacies and intimacies of small circles of people with shared interests is illumined by the path that led to the publication of Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham's first book. Soon after arriving in New York City from Toronto, Graham made the acquaintance of Hans and Margaret Rey, refugees from Europe and one of the original husband/wife teams that are such a feature in children's literature. The Rey's were the author/illustrators responsible for the enduringly popular Curious George stories. Hans Rey coached Graham in how to prepare an art portfolio and Margaret Rey encouraged the legendary children's books editor at Harper & Row, Ursula Nordstrom to take a look at Graham's work.

In 1951, Graham and Zion produced their first book, All Falling Down. The story is a simple one of a child observing the things that fall down in life (such as leaves from a tree), but the child does not fall down because his father is there to catch him. Graham illustrated it in pastel colors. Even though only her first book, All Falling Down received a Caldecott Honor Medal in 1952. Graham's next book was an illustration of a story by another famous children's author, Charlotte Zolotow, The Storm Book, published in 1952 which also received a Caldecott Honor Medal in 1953.

There followed three further books with Gene Zion. Then in 1956 came Harry the Dirty Dog, the first in what would ultimately be a series of four stories featuring Harry. In addition to the first story, the series includes No Roses for Harry (1958), Harry and the Lady Next Door (1960) and finally, Harry by the Sea (1965).

One day, on returning from running some errands, Graham was presented by her husband with the manuscript of a children's story which was shortly to become, Harry the Dirty Dog. Graham apparently immediately recognized that inherent attraction of the story (and indeed, it was ultimately published with scarcely any changes to the text.) If Harry appears to be a distinctive but unidentifiable canine, that is understandable. The model for Harry was actually a melding of Graham's aunt's two dogs - an Aberdeen Terrier and a Sealyham Terrier.

In both the Harry series, and then later the Benjy series (written and illustrated by Graham), we have a wonderfully innocent collection of stories. Set around small domestic issues (gifts we don't want, neighbors we don't like, etc.), the protagonists are dogs that know their own minds. They live in comfortable suburban settings and experience the positive side of the 1950's stereotype of domestic tranquility. Rendered in a simple cartoon style and with a limited color palette, the women look like they are Doris Day in a children's book, the houses, a couple of steps up from Levittown and the neighborhoods are from Charlie Brown or Beaver Cleaver. Iconic as it were.

The stories are gentle dramas with Harry (and later Benjy) basically having the personality of a five year old. There is definitely a lot with which a child can relate. Parents can enjoy the double laugh of Harry's antics as well as the fact that he is so like the child who is enjoying the story.

Graham wrote nineteen books in all, eleven with her husband, four on her own, and four with famous authors Zolotow, Minarik, Prelutsky and Gordon. She established two popular characters, Harry and Benjy. And then she finished. After 1970 she wrote two more books and illustrated a book for Jack Prelutsky and one for Else Holmelund Minarik and that was it. Not a lot of books in the scheme of things, but a style that so encapsulates an age and a decade.

If you are seeking simple, engaging stories which children consistently love, Harry is your dog and Graham is your author/illustrator.

Picture Books

	Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham Highly Recommended
	The Storm Book by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham Recommended
	Harry and the Lady Next Door by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham Recommended
	Harry by the Sea by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham Recommended
	Be Nice to Spiders by Margaret Bloy Graham Recommended

Margaret Bloy Graham's Bibliography

All Falling Down written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1951
The Storm Book written by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1952
Hide and Seek Day written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1954
The Summer Snowman written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1955
Really Spring written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1956
Harry the Dirty Dog written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1956
Dear Garbage Man written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1957
No Roses for Harry! written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1958
Harry and the Lady Next Door written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1960
The Meanest Squirrel I Ever Met written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1962
The Sugar Mouse Cake written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1964
Harry by the Sea written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1965
Be Nice to Spiders written and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1968
Benjy and the Barking Bird written and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1970
The Green Hornet Lunchbox written by Shirley Gordon and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1970
Benjy's Dog House written and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1972
The Pack Rat's Day written by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1974
Benjy's Boat Trip written and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1977
What If? written by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1987
Harry and the Lady Next Door written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham 1999

Lucy Maria Boston , a British writer, was born in 1892, one of six children of James Boston, an engineer, and Mary Wood Boston. Her upbringing was both strict (her word, "puritanical") and marked by tragedy, with the passing of father when she was six years old.

After her father's death, the family lived for a period in England's Lake District. This was a transformative event for Boston, "From that moment life was as different as for a butterfly getting out of its chrysalis, (I) became then like the children in my books: all eyes, ears, and finger tips in a world too beautiful to take in. Every moment of day and night was bliss, and had to be prolonged with solitary rambles in the early dawn. . . . There was no keeping me in, day or night, wet or fine. This, I suppose, is why my book-children are early rovers."

Boston was educated at Downs School in Sussex, followed by some time in a Quaker school in Surrey before finally attending finishing school in France. She read English at Oxford before the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914. With World War I, she received training as a nurse and then served in France. While there, she met her future husband, an officer in the British Flying Corps. They had a single son, Peter, before their marriage was dissolved in 1935. Peter Boston later illustrated a number of his mother's books.

Boston travelled in Europe from 1935-1939, residing mostly in Austria and Italy, learning to paint. She was a creative artist in several fields. Besides painting she was an avid creator and collector of patchwork quilts. Perhaps her greatest artistic work began in 1939 with the purchase of a manor house, Hemingford Grey, near Cambridge. This was to be her home from the time of purchase to the time of her death in 1990. Boston had a relationship with her new home akin to that other British poet, novelist, horticulturalist of that era, Vita Sackville-West and her home Sissinghurst Castle.

At the time of purchase, the Hemingford Grey manor was in dilapidated condition. With the help of her architect son, Peter, Boston set about restoring the manor. She was intimately involved in the detailed work of stripping away the grime, detritus and damage of several centuries of continuous habitation. At the same time, she was privy to all the nooks, crannies, and idiosyncrasies that a long inhabited house develops. She also, restored the gardens in the four acre grounds and planted a huge collection of old roses (some 200 varieties.)

Certainly this was a labor of love but the house also served as an inspiration and not only in terms of the architectural and horticulturalist arts. Boston is among a small band of writers for whom place is the critical element of their writing.

Boston did not begin her writing career until she was 62. Virtually all of her books are set in or involve Hemingford Grey under various guises. The astonishing thing about Boston is not only that she started writing so late in life but that she appears to have sprung forth fully formed as an author with no real antecedents, period of apprenticeship or trajectory of writing maturity. She was an older divorcee living in an ancient house and with interest and talent in architecture, horticultural, and patchwork quilts. And then, all of a sudden, she was an author, producing some of the most translucent prose of the 20th century, pitched equally to adults and to children.

1954 saw her first publication as an author with two books, The Children of Green Knowe and Yew Hall, both coming out that year. While both were written by Boston as adult books, she wished Peter Boston to illustrate The Children of Green Knowe and consequently was positioned serendipitously by her publishers as a children's book. The Green Knowe books are among the more literary works for independent readers and are a great introduction to the craft of descriptive writing and structuring a story.

She eventually wrote eighteen books in total, including a book of poetry, two autobiographical works and two novels for adults (Stronghold and Yew Hall.) She is known primarily, though, for one of the more unique series of books, the Green Knowe series. There are six books in the series - The Children of Green Knowe (1954), Treasure of Green Knowe (1958), The River at Green Knowe (1959), A Stranger at Green Knowe (1961), An Enemy at Green Knowe (1964), and years later, the final tale, The Stones of Green Knowe (1976).

I can think of no real counterpart to Boston in terms of her writing. There are authors for whom a sense of place is central to both their style and their stories. In adult literature there is Lawrence Durrell and his Alexandria Quartet, and perhaps Daphne du Maurier with Manderley ("Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.") in Rebecca. The distinctive aspect of Boston's writing, though, is that she goes beyond place being important or central to a story. In her writing, Green Knowe is really almost the protagonist of the tales. Across the six books in the series, Green Knowe is the only element that remains the same. Human protagonists come and go but the series is really a collective fantasy biography of Green Knowe itself.

Beyond making the manor the lead protagonist in her stories, Boston does two further things that are pretty surprising. First is that she creates some mystically complex story lines and then makes them work. In several stories, you are often uncertain whether you are reading about ghosts, or time travel or whether the protagonists are simply almost temporally empathetic. While this sounds complex, the beauty of Boston's stories is that that complexity is not apparent or intrusive and helps create a unique atmosphere.

The second thing that Boston does is that she runs roughshod over traditional genres, combining in different stories, elements of time travel, mystery, horror, adventure and historical fiction. You can pick up one book and form the impression of an author that is a master at historical fiction, another and think she is a master of fantasy and yet another and think of her as an adventure/mystery writer. In one book, she has a tautly plotted story but in general what you come away with is sensory. She puts you in a place with detail and creates an atmosphere that lingers. For example, she describes a cat's eyes which "had a vertical black slit that was like the gap between curtains."

You can read one of her books and feel like you have been reading one of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series. Another of her Green Knowe stories affects you as does Old Yeller. This in the same series. Boston described her objectives as a writer:

I would like to remind adults of joy, now obsolete, and I would like to encourage children to use and trust their senses for themselves at first hand - their ears, eyes and noses, their fingers and soles of their feet, their skins and their breathing, their muscular joy and rhythms and heartbeats, their instinctive loves and pity and awe of the unknown.

The Green Knowe series are all about place, continuity, and change. One of the features of Boston's writing is that while these are lovely, lyrical stories, they are broken into manageable and indeed almost independent chapters. They blend seamlessly together but you are able to read each chapter as a tale in itself. A great read aloud story.

If you have not read any of L.M. Boston's works, give them a try. I think you will find that your children will be entranced by them. If you have a child that cut some of their reading teeth on Harry Potter, there are some elements of Boston's Green Knowe books that will probably appeal to them in particular.


Independent Reader

	The Children of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston and illustrated by Peter Boston Highly Recommended
	Treasure of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston and illustrated by Peter Boston Recommended
	The River at Green Knowe by L. M. Boston and illustrated by Peter Boston Recommended
	A Stranger at Green Knowe by L. M. Boston and illustrated by Peter Boston Recommended
	An Enemy at Green Knowe by L. M. Boston Recommended
	The Stones Of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston and illustrated by Peter Boston Recommended

L.M. Boston Bibliography

The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston and illustrated by Peter Boston 1954
Yew Hall by Lucy M. Boston 1954
Treasure of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston 1958
The River at Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston 1959
A Stranger at Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston 1961
An Enemy at Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston 1964
The Castle of Yew by Lucy M. Boston 1965
The Sea Egg by Lucy M. Boston 1967
The House that Grew by Lucy M. Boston 1969
Strongholds by Lucy M. Boston 1969
The Horned Man; or, Whom Will You Send to Fetch Her Away? by Lucy M. Boston 1970
Nothing Said by Lucy M. Boston 1971
Memory in a House by Lucy M. Boston 1973
The Guardians of the House by Lucy M. Boston 1974
The Fossil Snake by Lucy M. Boston 1975
The Stones of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston 1976
Time Is Undone: Twenty-Five Poems by Lucy M. Boston 1977
Perverse and Foolish: A Memoir of Childhood and Youth by Lucy M. Boston 1979

Born May 23, 1935 in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England

Whether you "enjoy" the genre of fantasy or not, it is the genre in which children frequently encounter a world where the boundaries between Good and Evil are most clearly delineated and where the eternal struggle is painted most clearly. It is ironic that that should be so because as we grow, age, and sometimes become wiser, one of the skins of childhood that we shed is that clear certainty of where Good lies and where Evil lurks. Unless we think deeply and reflectively, it often seems that a world of clear light becomes befogged with shades of grey. We return to fantasy to capture that clarity; where we can know the good guys from the bad and where we can carry moral certitude as a "strange device".

Along with other noted practitioners such as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Ursula K. Le Guin, Alan Garner, and latterly J.K. Rowling, Susan Cooper is one of the premier practitioners of storytelling in the realm of Good and Evil. Like these others, she has mined the languages and legend of the British Isles for her images and atmosphere in her five book Dark Is Rising series. Fortunately, and it is one of the distinctive features of her writing, Cooper is not a preacher or a simplifier. She acknowledges Good and Evil and the quest of her characters to understand these two extremes and their desire to discover on which side they will stand their ground. But she is also an apostle of the ambiguous and a priestess of the Golden Mean. Things are not always what they appear in her books and it is that ambiguity and uncertainty that imparts a tension, thrill and veracity that sometimes is absent elsewhere.

The quest to understand Good and Evil shows up early in our cultural heritage, the continuing navigation between the Us and the Them, between the Light by the fire and the Darkness out there. The roots of moderation are nearly as deep, with the Greeks (of course) already counseling that "Moderation is best" (Cleobulus) and that we should pursue "Nothing in excess" (Aristotle). In fact, even before the philosophers, the very first storytellers are speaking this counsel. Homer has Menelaus (brother of Agamemnon) in the Iliad say "I would disapprove of another hospitable man who was excessive in friendship, as of one excessive in hate. In all things balance is better."

Cooper's achievement in The Dark is Rising series is to treat serious themes seriously but deftly. She is a powerful writer who engages, almost regardless of theme or topic, and she has a near perfect pitch for dealing with themes of moral exploration and self-discovery for young readers. In dealing with serious issues, she exposes herself to criticisms of one sort or another - too ambiguous, too nuanced, too magical, etc. I would argue that Cooper is just what bright young children need - someone that helps them engage, not in some pedantic way, but at an emotional as well as intellectual level, with the conundrums of life. She is a catalyst to deeper thinking. One of the things that I enjoy about her writing is that while, as an author, she always counsels against the extremes that lead to bad actions from good intentions, she also does not fall into the fatal trap of moral equivalence - the argument that all actions are equally good/bad.

Born in 1935 in Buckinghamshire, England, Cooper was a young girl through the six years of World War II and she has identified this period as a significant influence on her thinking and writing. Her father worked for the famed Great Western Railway and was a lover of music and drawing while her mother was a teacher and a reader of poetry. Cooper was drawn to books early on but also to other aspects of story-telling including theatrical productions and BBC radio dramatizations. She took her degree at Oxford University where she was able to attend lectures by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Graduating from Oxford, Cooper initially pursued a career in journalism back when it was really a profession. She worked for The Sunday Times for seven years, learning the journalist's craft of tight prose, getting to the point, working against deadlines, etc. While at the Times, she worked for a period under the editorship of Ian Fleming of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and James Bond fame.

In 1963 Cooper married an MIT professor with three children (she was to later have two children of her own as well) and moved to the USA. She has resided in the US ever since, though her books are all set in Britain. Cooper's first marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Cooper continued her career in journalism, producing a body of columns commenting on the points of commonality and distinction between Britain and the US. These essays were collected together and published as her third book, Behind the Golden Curtain: A View of the USA in 1965.

Cooper's first book, Mandrake, an adult science fiction dystopia, was published in 1964, a year after her move to the USA. In 1965 she published her second book and what was to be the first in the five books in The Dark is Rising series, Over Sea, Under Stone. The other books in the series are The Dark is Rising (1973), Greenwitch (1974), The Grey King (1975) and Silver on the Tree (1977). Each book, from Over Sea, Under Stone onwards, has been very well received, in terms of popularity, in critical terms and in terms of awards. The Grey King, viewed by some as the best in the series, won the Newbery Medal in 1976.

Over the years, Cooper has demonstrated a remarkable range of authorial talent across the thirty books she has written. In addition to the five Dark is Rising series, she has, as noted, published collections of essays (her own with Behind the Golden Curtain, and of others with her collection of J.B. Prietley essays which she edited as Essays of Five Decades), a biography (J.B. Priestley: Portrait of an Author), juvenile historical fiction which was also semi-autobiographical (Dawn of Fear), further children's fantasy but for younger readers, Broadway plays, retellings of British Isles folklore (such as The Silver Cow: A Welsh Tale and The Selkie Tale), and humorous fantasy for independent readers (The Boggart and The Boggart and the Monster). She has also turned her hand to television screenplays. It was through her work in theater and television that Cooper met her second husband, Hume Cronyn.

For all the versatility and range of writing achievement, Cooper's reputation is firmly tied to the success and effectiveness of the fantasy series The Dark is Rising. The seed for the first book was planted when the publisher Ernest Benn offered a prize for a family adventure story in the vein of Edith Nesbit. Cooper was taken with this idea (it "offered the irresistible combination of a challenge, a deadline, and money, and I dived at it in delight.") but soon left the prize behind as her own work headed in its own direction. A character she created in the first chapter, Merriman Lyon (a modern day uncle of the three protagonist children but in actuality Merlin from the King Arthur legends), hijacked her reality-based story. According to Cooper, "Merry took over. He led the book out of realism, to myth-haunted layers of story that took me way past a 'family adventure' and way past my deadline. Now I was no longer writing for a deadline or money. I was writing for me, or perhaps for the child I once was and in part still am."

Over Sea, Under Stone tells the story of three children, on holiday in Cornwall with their uncle. They discover an ancient map which in turn leads them to the Holy Grail which in turn plunges them into the struggle Good and Evil. Over Sea, Under Stone was rejected by more than twenty publishers before finally being accepted and published by Jonathan Cape. In the subsequent books, Uncle Merriman Lyon returns with a different cast of characters. The protagonist is Will Stanton, the seventh son of a seventh son. His journey of self-discovery and then crusade against the Dark forms the backbone of the rest of the series.

Cooper's childhood was closely bound not only to the quintessentially English county of Buckinghamshire but also to the Celtic fringe of Britain with summer holidays in Cornwall and a grandmother from North Wales and where her parents lived for the last twenty-five years of their lives. It is the rich tapestry of England and darker Celtic myths that so enriches the Dark is Rising series. Natalie Babbitt (author of the wonderful fantasy Tuck Everlasting) reviewed The Grey King in the New York Times Book Review and concluded "It is useless to try to recreate the subtleties of Susan Cooper's plotting and language. Enough to say that this volume, like those preceding it, is brimful of mythic elements and is beautifully told." Indeed.

If you have access to The Horn Book Magazine, there is a wonderful article in the May/June 2008 edition by Susan Cooper, Unriddling the World, which well repays an attentive read. The following are snippets from that essay. These can in no way substitute for the pleasure and insight of the full article, but like hors d'oeuvres, they might whet the appetite.

Writers of my kind try to unriddle the world through fantasy. In the childhood of mankind, this was the job of myth. Once we human beings began to think, we tried to make sense of this beautiful puzzling perilous place we live in, and so we began to invent stories. . .

In all cultures of the earth the myths developed, to deal with the five great mysteries that we still try to understand today: life, death, time, good, and evil. The myths are the archetypal stories, the basis for everything that's come after them. You learned about them in grade school: all the earliest beliefs, that great splendid stew of Greek and Roman, Norse and Celtic, Apollo and Zeus and Venus and Mars and Thor and Loki, and on, and on. And you were taught to use the word mythical to mean unreal. But though myth, like its grandchild fantasy, may not be real, it is true.

Today's educated adult doesn't give a great deal of thought to the myths. He or she may have religious beliefs, depending on faith rather than on reason, but in general prefer fact to metaphor. The last two hundred years have seen such an explosion of discovery and knowledge that we've come to feel science and technology will solve all the riddles, in the end. Problem-solving and unriddling, however, are not quite the same thing. . . .

. . . If you ask yourself rational straightforward questions about a story or an image, you can find yourself facing a blank wall. A storyteller has to be irrational, indirect, in order to help young readers cope with this eternally puzzling world – because facts alone are not going to resolve the riddles for them, not without the help of the imagination.

. . . The riddle of good and evil is at the heart of nearly all the fantasy novels read by children not only in this middle range, but on into adolescence; we aren't thinking about sex all the time even when we're sixteen. These are times when story is particularly valuable, to stretch the muscles of the imagination. It teaches without intending to. God forbid that it should be consciously didactic; a lot of the Victorians wrote perfectly terrible didactic books that must have bored children rigid. But inevitably in writing fantasy we show good, we show evil, we show the powers of each – and, I suppose, we show how to choose. And the young reader is paying attention simply because he – or she – is, like us, inside the story. He's more completely inside this kind of story than an adult can be. It's not that we lose touch with our imaginations when we grow up, but by then experience has hardened our opinions, assumptions, beliefs, and to some extent they get in the way. The young reader hasn't any of these; he's still looking, questing. And inside the story, the quest of the hero is a metaphor for the reader's quest for adulthood.

She's a marvelous writer - try any of her books but certainly, make sure your eleven to thirteen year olds are exposed to her Dark is Rising books.


Picture Books

The Magician's Boy by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Serena Riglietti Suggested

Independent Reader

	Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper Highly Recommended
	The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper Highly Recommended
	Greenwitch by Susan Cooper Highly Recommended
	The Grey King by Susan Cooper Highly Recommended
	Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper Recommended
	Dawn of Fear by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Margery Gill Suggested
	The Boggart by Susan Cooper Suggested
	The Boggart and the Monster by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman Suggested
	King of Shadows by Susan Cooper Suggested
	Green Boy by Susan Cooper Suggested
	Victory by Susan Cooper Suggested
	The Seeker by Susan Cooper Suggested

Susan Cooper Bibilography

Mandrake written by Susan Cooper 1964
Over Sea, under Stone written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Margery Gill 1965
Behind the Golden Curtain: A View of the U.S.A. written by Susan Cooper 1965
Essays of Five Decades written by Susan Cooper 1968
Dawn of Fear written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Margery Gill 1970
J. B. Priestley: Portrait of an Author written by Susan Cooper 1970
The Dark Is Rising written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Alan E. Cober 1973
Greenwitch written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Lianne Payne 1974
The Grey King written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Michael Heslop 1975
Silver on the Tree written by Susan Cooper 1977
Jethro and the Jumbie written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Ashley Bryan 1979
Foxfire written by Susan Cooper 1980
Seaward written by Susan Cooper 1983
The Silver Cow: A Welsh Tale written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Warwick Hutton 1983
The Dollmaker written by Susan Cooper 1984
The Selkie Girl written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Warwick Hutton 1986
Tam Lin written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Warwick Hutton 1991
Matthew's Dragon written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Joseph A. Smith 1991
The Boggart written by Susan Cooper 1992
Danny and the Kings written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Joseph A. Smith 1993
To Dance with the White Dog written by Susan Cooper 1993
Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children written by Susan Cooper 1996
The Boggart and the Monster written by Susan Cooper 1997
Don't Read This! and Other Tales of the Unnatural written by Susan Cooper 1998
King of Shadows written by Susan Cooper 1999
Frog written by Susan Cooper and illustrated by Jane Browne 2002
Green Boy written by Susan Cooper 2002
The Magician's Boy written by Susan Cooper 2005
Victory written by Susan Cooper 2006
The Seeker written by Susan Cooper 2007

Born September 7, 1941 in Cincinnati, Ohio

There are some books and characters, just as there are some people, that are just plain nice. Such is the case with Carl in Alexandra Day's series about a Rottweiler named Carl.

Alexandra Day is the nom de plume of Sandra Darling nee Woodward, born into a large and artistic family in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 7th, 1941. Her grandfather was an architect, her father was a painter and her mother a homemaker. The house was filled, not only with books but also with art supplies of one sort or another and all the girls were encouraged to create. For four years during her childhood, Day and her family lived on a large farm in Kentucky. In addition to being in the country and close to horses (which she loved riding and training), it was also where Day owned her first dog; dog ownership being a near constant in her later life.

Day took her degree in English at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia. Subsequent to obtaining her degree, Day then lived in New York for a period, teaching and also studying drawing at the Art Students' League. On a trip to California in the mid-sixties, Day met Harold Darling, a bookstore and cinema owner.

Alexandra Day and Harold Darling were wed in 1967. Previously married, Harold Darling already had three children. Day and Darling had a further four children (named after favorite authors) as well as a foster child.

In 1970 the Darlings founded a publishing company, Green Tiger Press, in San Diego. Initially their focus was publishing beautiful illustrations from old children's books as postcards, notecards, and bookmarks. From this they evolved into publishing children's books. Though the entire venture was very much a collaborative affair between husband and wife, Day focused substantially on the design and production of their works - a background and skill set that were to provide a strong grounding in her subsequent career evolution as an illustrator.

In 1983, they needed an illustrator for the favorite children's song The Teddy Bears' Picnic. Day decided to turn her hand to this field of endeavor and in 1983 her first book, The Teddy Bears' Picnic was published by Green Tiger Press. It was well received and she followed it the next year as illustrator of Joan Marshall Grant's The Blue Faience Hippopotamus.

Finally, in 1985 came the first of her signature series of books, Good Dog, Carl. Good Dog, Carl and the rest of the books in the series (Carl Goes Shopping, Carl's Christmas, Carl's Afternoon in the Park, Carl's Masquerade, Carl Goes to Daycare, Carl Makes a Scrapbook, Carl Pops Up, Carl's Birthday, Carl's Sleepy Afternoon, Carl's Summer Vacation, Follow Carl and ) feature the adventures of Carl, a large, gentle, intelligent and deeply responsible Rottweiler and a little girl, Madeleine, who is less responsible.

The stories are illustrated in a realistic style though there is a distinct element of fantasy in the plot. Initially, the illustrations were primarily in gouache, then later in oil and the most recent books have been a combination of watercolor and oil. The opening page or two set the scene. Mother (and/or Father) is about to do something; go shopping, talk to a friend, go to a masquerade ball, etc. Mother instructs Carl to look after baby. There then follow a series of miniature adventures, told solely through pictures. Most typically these involve Carl and Madeleine exploring their environment (the Park, the Ball, the Department Store, etc.), having miniature adventures, and making a mess. At the last minute, Carl gets Madeleine back to where she is supposed to be, cleans up the mess in an efficiently dog-like way, and is there waiting when Mother returns and is rewarded with praise from her along the lines of "Good dog, Carl."

So – Little text and beautiful and realistic illustrations. The enduring charm of these books is more than that though. Each of the stories involves a small element of fantasy. For example, Madeline routinely rides around on Carl bareback. A rather improbable feat but it doesn't seem very far from the realm of feasible. It is not a hard stretch for a child to enter into this wonderfully pleasant and exciting world - It could happen and it would be lovely if it did.

Another element of appeal, I suspect, is simply the naughtiness of the adventures. There are no major transgressions but all involve activities that are clearly beyond the pale. Madeline, for example, in one of the stories, ends up taking a swim in the fish tank. I think children thrill to this gentle illicitness.

From a parent's perspective, these are wonderful little stories. They do lend themselves better than many to a board book format, suitable for the very youngest of children and, because there is such minimal text, these books lend themselves to a snuggly read where the parent tells the story based on the picture.

The original idea for Carl came when Day was visiting Zurich, Switzerland and came across a children's book featuring a poodle and a child playing together when the child should have been napping. Inspired by this, she returned to the US with the idea in mind. The poodle morphed into the family's real-life Rottweiler, Toby and the rest is history. Toby has passed, with subsequent family pet Rottweilers Arambarri and Zabala taking up his role as model.

Day has written and illustrated other books than the Carl stories. In particular, there is a series of three Frank and Ernest books (featuring respectively a bear and an elephant) as well as a couple of books about Darby, a special order pup. These have proved popular as well, but I think Day's lasting accomplishment will be judged to be the paradisiacal world of Madeleine and Carl.

Alexandra Day has said, "I think that one of the reasons my illustrations have appealed to people is that they can sense my sincerity. I know that marvels exist which are just outside our ordinary experience, but that at any moment we may turn a corner and encounter one of them. Children also believe this, and because they and I have this conviction in common, we, as creator and audience, make good partners."

I would agree but add that it is not just children that can enjoy the Carl books. As an adult these are tales that help recapture that sense of wonder and possibility that was still so ripe as a child.

Enjoy all of Day's books but do introduce your very youngest to that stalwart and responsible friend, Carl.



Picture Books

	Good Dog, Carl written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Highly Recommended
	Carl's Afternoon in the Park written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Highly Recommended
	Carl's Masquerade written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Highly Recommended
	Carl Goes to Daycare written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Recommended
	Carl's Birthday written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Recommended
	Follow Carl! written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Recommended
	The Teddy Bears' Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy and illustrated by Alexandra Day Suggested
	Carl Goes Shopping written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Suggested
	Carl's Christmas written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Suggested
	Carl's Sleepy Afternoon written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Suggested
	You're a Good Dog, Carl written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Suggested
	Carl's Summer Vacation written and illustrated by Alexandra Day Suggested
	Not Forgotten edited by Alexandra Day Potential
	Hooray for Dogs edited by Alexandra Day Potential

Alexandra Day's Bibliography
The Teddy Bears' Picnic (book and record set) by Jimmy Kennedy and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1983
The Blue Faience Hippopotamus by Joan Marshall Grant and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1984
Good Dog, Carl written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1985
Children of Wonder Volume 1: Helping the Sun by Cooper Edens and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1987
Children of Wonder Volume 2: Helping the Animals by Cooper Edens and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1987
Children of Wonder Volume 3: Helping the Flowers by Cooper Edens and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1987
Children of Wonder Volume 4: Helping the Night by Cooper Edens and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1987
When You Wish upon a Star by Ned Washington and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1987
Frank and Ernest written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1988
Carl Goes Shopping written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1989
Paddy's Pay-Day written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1989
A. B. C. of Fashionable Animals written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1989
Frank and Ernest Play Ball written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1990
Carl's Christmas written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1990
River Parade written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1990
Carl's Afternoon in the Park written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1991
Teddy Bears' Picnic Cookbook by Abigail Darling and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1991
Carl's Masquerade written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1992
Carl Goes to Daycare written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1993
Carl Makes a Scrapbook written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1994
Carl Pops Up written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1994
Frank and Ernest on the Road written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1994
Carl's Birthday written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1995
A Bouquet written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1996
(With Cooper Edens) The Christmas We Moved to the Barn written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1997
Follow Carl! written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1998
Boswell Wide-Awake written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 1999
(With Edens) Darby, the Special-Order Pup written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 2000
(With Edens) Special Deliveries written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 2001
Puppy Trouble written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 2002
Not Forgotten: A Consolation for the Loss of an Animal Friend written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 2004
Carl's Sleepy Afternoon written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 2005
You're a Good Dog, Carl written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 2007
Carl's Summer Vacation written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 2008
Hooray for Dogs written and illustrated by Alexandra Day 2008