Authors Emeritus: Virginia Lee Burton

Vir­ginia Lee Bur­ton was born on August 30, 1909 in New­ton Cen­tre, Mass­a­chu­setts. She stud­ied art at the Cal­i­for­nia School of Fine Arts and the Boston Muse­um School. One of her ear­li­est jobs was as a “sketch­er” for the arts sec­tion of the Boston Transcript. She mar­ried George Demetrios, a sculp­tor and her teacher at the Muse­um School, in 1931.… more
Read More »

Authors Emeritus: Lynd Ward

Born in Chica­go on June 26, 1905, Lynd Ward, the son of a Methodist min­is­ter, grew up mov­ing around and liv­ing close to new immi­grants. Ward was a sick­ly baby and the fam­i­ly moved to north­ern Cana­da for sev­er­al months hop­ing his health would improve. Upon the family’s return, Ward, now a health­i­er child, nev­er lost his bond with the wilder­ness.… more
Read More »

Authors Emeritus: Tom Feelings and Virginia Hamilton

Authors Emer­i­tus, a com­pi­la­tion of short biogra­phies of deceased children’s lit­er­a­ture cre­ators, is a Bookol­o­gy Children’s Lit­er­a­ture resource.  When a Book­storm™ includes books by authors and illus­tra­tors in the index we like to high­light those biogra­phies. This month: Tom Feel­ings (The Mid­dle Pas­sage) and Vir­ginia Hamil­ton (Many Thou­sand Gone).   Tom Feel­ings, born on May 19, 1933, was a native of Brook­lyn, NY.… more
Read More »
ph_headstones

Authors Emeritus: Arna Bontemps

Born on Octo­ber 13, 1902 in Louisiana, Arna Bon­temps grew up and was edu­cat­ed in Cal­i­for­nia. Upon grad­u­at­ing from col­lege he accept­ed a teach­ing posi­tion in New York City, where he became friends with sev­er­al oth­er writ­ers and edu­ca­tors, includ­ing Langston Hughes. Bon­temps would become, along with Hugh­es, one of the influ­en­tial artists of the Harlem Renais­sance who would expand the pres­ence of African Amer­i­can writ­ers in children’s lit­er­a­ture.… more
Read More »
author photo

Authors Emeritus: Syd Hoff

His illus­tra­tions best char­ac­ter­ized as sim­plis­tic and humor­ous, Syd Hoff has held a warm place in children’s hearts through more than 200 books. Born on Sep­tem­ber 4th, Syd Hoff grew up in New York City. He went to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Design as a fine arts stu­dent, but his teach­ers didn’t appre­ci­ate the humor that per­vad­ed his work.… more
Read More »
ph_headstones

Author Emeritus: Eleanor Cameron

  Eleanor Frances But­ler Cameron in was born in Win­nipeg, Man­i­to­ba on March 23, 1912. She attend­ed UCLA and the LA Art Cen­ter School for three years before mar­ry­ing Ian Stu­art Cameron, a print­er, in 1934. Mrs. Cameron worked as a ref­er­ence librar­i­an for many years before begin­ning to write full time, and was fas­ci­nat­ed by the way the mind took frag­ments of a writer’s life and rearranged them for writ­ing mate­r­i­al.… more
Read More »
grave stones

Author Emeritus: Rosemary Sutcliffe

Rose­mary Sut­cliff, author of children’s his­tor­i­cal nov­els, was born on Decem­ber 14, 1920, in Sur­rey, Eng­land. She wrote children’s books, nov­els, short sto­ries, and scripts for radio, TV, and film. In child­hood, Stil­l’s dis­ease kept her in a wheel­chair and close to home. Her moth­er home­schooled her and first intro­duced her to Sax­on and Celtic leg­ends. She didn’t learn to read until the age of ten.… more
Read More »