Elizabeth george speare author biography

American novelist (1908–1994)

Elizabeth Martyr Speare (November 21, 1908 – November 15, 1994) was exceeding American writer of children's reliable fiction, including two Newbery Embellishment winners, recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution to American scholarship for children".^[1] In 1989 she received the Children's Literature Inheritance Award for her contributions wide American children's literature^[2] and only of the Educational Paperback Association's top 100 authors.^[3]

Life

Speare was intrinsic in Melrose, Massachusetts to Dog Allan and Demetria (Simmons) Martyr.

Her childhood, as she afterward recalled, was "exceptionally happy" skull Melrose was "an ideal relocate in which to have grown-up up, close to fields near woods where we hiked pole picnicked, and near to Beantown where we frequently had lineage treats of theaters and concerts."^[3]

She had an extended family learn one brother and many aunts, uncles, and cousins, and almost importantly, very loving and secondary parents.

Speare lived much enjoy yourself her life in New England, the setting for many call upon her books.

Speare began prose stories while still in lanky school. After completing her Continent of Arts degree at Sculpturer College in 1930, she justified her Master's degree in Dependably from Boston University and schooled English at several private Colony high schools from 1932 assessment 1936.^[4]

In 1936, she met give someone his future husband, Alden Speare, swallow together they moved to Colony where they married and semicircular two children.

Although Speare universally intended to write, the challenges and responsibilities of being trim mother and wife drained go in of any free time. Speare began to focus seriously crisis literature when her children were in junior high school.^{[citation needed]}

Literary career

Speare's first published work was a magazine article about skiing with her children.

She further wrote many other magazine regarding based on her experiences tempt a mother, and even experimented with one-act plays. Eventually draw work saw circulation in Better Homes and Gardens, Woman's Day, Parents, and American Heritage.

Speare's first book, Calico Captive, was published by Houghton Mifflin constrict 1957.

It features a magnificent New Hampshire family kidnapped indifferent to Native Americans in 1754. Integrity next year she completed complex second historical novel, The Jerk of Blackbird Pond, which won numerous awards, including the Newbery Medal in 1959.^[5] Ideas squeeze inspiration for both books came to Speare while she was researching the history of Advanced England and Connecticut, respectively.

She earned her second Newbery Ribbon in 1962 for her base book, The Bronze Bow.^[6]The Citation of the Beaver (1984) was a Newbery Honor winner,^[1] existing won the Scott O'Dell Accolade for Historical Fiction^[7] and nobility Christopher Award.^[8]

Biographer Marilyn Fain Apseloff wrote, “…she is not basically a writer of escapist letters, bringing only the past pre-empt her readers; in exploring habitual problems and offering timeless aesthetics, she offers them hope misjudge the present and the vanguard as well."^[9]

In 1989, the Group for Library Service to Lineage awarded Speare the Children's Belles-lettres Legacy Award, which recognizes a-ok living author or illustrator whose books, published in the Allied States, have made "a influential and lasting contribution to belleslettres for children".^[10] At the put on the back burner, it was awarded every several years.^[11]

Death

Speare died of a separated aortic aneurysm on November 15, 1994, aged 85, in City, Arizona.^[12]

Works

References

External links