I met Elaine several times, first when she gave a dynamite speech about censorship at the University of Chicago when I was a student, and last when she gave another dynamite speech upon receiving the University of Southern Mississippi Medallion in 1998. An acute critic, she was one of the few writers for children  who I thought could do an equally good job on our side of the fence. She had a big Carol Burnett smile and was always the most stylishly dressed person in the room. That goes for her prose, too.

Elissa has collected some of Konigsburg’s Horn Book moments.

The post Remembering Elaine Konigsburg appeared first on The Horn Book.

Although Mom can detect the most subtle nuance in painting or prose, she never developed a musical ear. Knowing that, my brother Paul purchased several classical records and proceeded to give her a course in music appreciation. It is not surprising that Mom’s interpretation of music took on a literary dimension. After hearing the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony #40 in G Minor, she knew she would one day use it as a model for a book. Like that movement, her book would have a short opening, a recurrent theme, and a melody that was separate yet intertwined, repeated and extended. The result was The View from Saturday.

Discord, not harmony, motivated Mom to conceive From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. As she listened to Paul, Ross, and me complain about insects and heat during a family picnic, she concluded that her suburban children would never run away from home by opting for a wilderness adventure. Instead, we would seek the comfort and splendor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Although the inspiration for these Newbery books was as disparate as the three decades which separate their publication, their theme is the same. In fact, every one of E. L. Konigsburg’s fourteen novels are about children who seek, find, and ultimately enjoy who they are. Despite this common denominator, E. L. Konigsburg’s writing is the antithesis of the formula book. Her characters are one-of-a-kind. They include Jamie Kincaid, who likes complications and cheats at cards; Ned Hixon, who turns the finding of fossilized sharks teeth into a competition as fierce as Wimbledon; and Chloë Pollack, who learns to put bad hair days and other people’s opinions into perspective.

Mom always lets her characters speak for themselves. At the same time, she persists in having them speak to the core of her readers. Thirty years has not changed the fundamental identity of Mom’s audience–middle-aged children who crave acceptance by their peers as desperately as they yearn to be appreciated for their differences. E. L. Konigsburg’s success can be attributed to the fact that when children read any of her novels, they see themselves, and they laugh.

Since readers recognize themselves in E. L. Konigsburg’s books, they frequently ask how she discovered her own identity as an author. The answer is that her writing career began when she was a graduate student in chemistry.

Both science and art demand discipline and imagination. The laboratory protocol that compelled Mom to log and monitor experiments developed into the self-control she exercises when she forces herself to sit at her desk and write. Conjecturing how molecules fit together during chemical reactions became training for creating character and plot. Indeed, chemistry showed that transcending intellectual boundaries is prerequisite to true discovery. How else did a former student of architecture, Friedrich Kekulé, dream that a snake was biting its own tail, and so discover the ringed structure of benzene?

Today, there is less recognition that skills can be transferred from one discipline to another. The current crop of help-wanted ads demand specialized degrees and mastery of specific computer programs. They don’t mention imagination. It’s a good thing E. L. Konigsburg has found success as an author, because she’s out of sync with today’s narrowly defined careers. She has a terrific sense of design, but what firm would hire a graphic artist who’s never heard of CorelDRAW and has trouble double-clicking a mouse? Mom would also have difficulty as an administrative assistant. She’d comply with requests to organize office records, but nobody else would be able to retrieve them. The process her brain goes through to store and retrieve information is as mixed-up as Mrs. Frankweiler’s files (and uncovers as much treasure).

So the entire Konigsburg family is grateful, truly grateful, that readers and the Newbery Committee admire and recognize E. L. Konigsburg’s talent. By coincidence, my family and I arrived to visit my parents the very day they learned that she had won the 1997 Newbery Medal. She had only five minutes to spend with us before she left to be on the “Today” show in New York. We spent those moments jumping for joy.

While Mom was in Manhattan, Dad answered dozens of phone calls, and the condominium filled with floral arrangements. I was moved by how proud Dad was of her. For forty-five years, he has been her sounding board, and throughout her career, he has been her business adviser. I was also touched by how many well-wishers were friends who had helped our family celebrate the 1968 Newbery. Now, some of their children called with congratulations.

Mom came home, exhilarated from her trip. Soon, she was returning phone calls and writing thank-you notes. She had already returned to being wife, mother, and grandmother. After learning that my thirteen-year-old son was wearing a stocking cap to prevent his hair from curling, Elaine Konigsburg took her grandson to a hair salon and bought him styling mousse. That evening, she heated up the brisket she had made to celebrate our visit. We enjoyed our meal, and I thought about how receiving a second Newbery has made Mom’s life come full spiral. After twenty-nine years, that’s better than full circle.

Laurie Konigsburg Todd, her husband Robert, and son Sam operate a five-hundred-acre farm in upstate New York.  From the July/August 1997 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

The post Profile of E. L. Konigsburg by Laurie Konigsburg Todd appeared first on The Horn Book.

Early in her life, there was evidence that she would be successful. But nobody would have predicted that she would achieve recognition in the field of children’s literature. Elaine was valedictorian of her class in high school. Subsequently, she was an honor student at Carnegie Institute of Technology, where she majored in chemistry and was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science. She continued her studies in chemistry in the graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh. After a few minor explosions, burned hair, and stained and torn clothes, she began to think about other occupations. Frankly, it seemed like a just end to anyone who would even contemplate writing a thesis concerning the Grignard reaction using heterocyclic compounds of a pyridine base.

Fortuitously, her husband, an industrial psychologist, made one of his many moves. The Konigsburgs left Pittsburgh and a much relieved laboratory staff to live in Jacksonville, Florida. There Elaine taught science to young girls in a private school until 1955, when Paul was born. Seventeen months later Laurie arrived, and in 1959 Ross uttered his first of many sounds of protest. It was wonderful to watch the children develop, but there was a champagne celebration when all three were out of the diaper stage.

Shortly afterwards, Elaine returned to teaching. Her initial thoughts about writing stories for children occurred during this period. Instead, however, she explored her talents as an artist. With a strong desire to excel in any endeavor, she devoted many hours to perfecting techniques. Her efforts were rewarded with prizes in local shows. On a trip to the Grand Canyon, she made friends among the Hopi Indians by sketching their little boys and girls.

In 1962 our family moved to the metropolitan New York area. Elaine took several courses at the Art Students’ League. Her paintings received awards in shows held in Westchester County. As the children grew older and we became more involved with suburban living, Elaine was intrigued with the various forces exerting an influence on us.

In 1966 she began to write her first book, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Laurie, Paul, and Ross were delighted to serve as models for her illustrations. The five of us danced around the room the following year when the manuscript was completed and accepted by Atheneum.

Even before she received that good news, Elaine had begun writing From, the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Again our children were used as the models for the illustrations. Despite a fracture in her left leg and a series of accidents which resulted in seventeen stitches in Ross’s head, she persevered. Trips to the emergency room in the Port Chester hospital became almost a monthly routine.

Paul reached the age where he was involved in little league baseball, football, and basketball. We attended the games and cheered wildly for his team. If he caught the ball or made a hit, the game was a success regardless of the final score. Not satisfied with superficial knowledge, Elaine studied the official rule books. Serious discussions were held at the dinner table about the merits of a drag bunt and when it was wiser to run and hit instead of hit and run. We even got her to Shea and Yankee stadiums where she let her opinions about the managers’ decisions be known. This furnished the background for her third book, About the B’nai Bagels, which will be published in 1969.

With fond memories, the family left Port Chester in August, 1967, and returned to Jacksonville, Florida. January 13th of the following year proved to be anything but an unlucky day. We were in the middle of moving out of an apartment into our new house when the telephone rang. Amid considerable turmoil, Elaine learned that she had received the Newbery Award. There was much hugging and kissing and shouts of joy with neighbors and friends. And we are pleased that things have not yet settled down.

To date, Elaine has performed in a superior manner as an artist and author. Her accomplishments in those areas, however, are insignificant when compared with her achievements as a mother and wife. She has an excellent sense of priorities and a value system which promotes harmony. As our youngest, who plays a competent game of poker, says, “Don’t bet against her.”

From the August 1968 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

The post Profile of Elaine Konigsburg by David Konigsburg appeared first on The Horn Book.

There was a long newspaper strike the first winter we moved into metropolitan New York. Saturday used to be my day off, and I used that day for taking art lessons in the morning and for exploring Manhattan in the afternoon. Our suburbs were New Jersey suburbs then, and my last piece of walking involved a cross-town journey toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal. On one of those Saturdays, as I was in the heart of the theater district, a volley of teen-age girls came larruping down the street bellowing, “The Rolling Stones! The Rolling Stones!” Up ahead, a small bunch of long-haired boys broke into a run and ducked into an alley, Shubert Alley. The girls pursued, and the Rolling Stones gathered; they pushed their collective hair out of their collective eyes and signed autographs.

I told my family about this small happening when I came home, but that was not enough. The next day I wanted to show them an account of it in the paper. But there was no Sunday paper then. It didn’t get written down. I had seen it happen, and still I missed its not being written down. Even now, I miss its never having been written down. I need to see the words to make more real that which I have experienced. And that is the first way I need words. A quotation from my old world of science explains it: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Each animal in its individual development passes through stages in which it resembles its remote ancestors. I spread words on paper for the same reasons that Cro-Magnon man spread pictures on the walls of caves. I need to see it put down: the Rolling Stones and the squealing girls. Thus, first of all, writing it down adds another dimension to reality and satisfies an atavistic need.

And I need words for a second reason. I need them for the reasons that Jane Austen probably did. She told about the dailiness of living. She presented a picture that only someone both involved with his times and detached from them could present. Just like me. I am involved in the everyday, corn-flakes, worn-out-sneakers way of life of my children; yet I am detached from it by several decades. And I give words to the supermarket shopping and to the laundromat just as Jane Austen gave words to afternoon visiting and worry about drafts from open windows.

Just as she stood in a corridor, sheltered by roof and walls from the larger world of her century, just as she stood there and described what was happening in the cubicles of civilization, I stand in my corridor. My corridor is my generation, a hallway away from the children that I breed and need and write about. I peek into homes sitting on quarter-acre lots and into apartments with two bedrooms and two baths. So I need words for this reason: to make record of a place, suburban America, and a time, early autumn of the twentieth century.

My phylogenetic need, adding another dimension to reality, and my class and order need, making record, are certainly the wind at my back, but a family need is the directed, strong gust that pushes me to my desk. And here I don’t mean family in the taxonomic sense. I mean family that I lived in when I was growing up and family that I live in now.

Read Mary Poppins, and you get a good glimpse of upper-middle-class family life in England a quarter of a century ago, a family that had basis in fact. Besides Mary there were Cook and Robertson Ay, and Ellen to lay the table. The outside of the Banks’ house needed paint. Would such a household exist in a middle-class neighborhood in a Shaker Heights, Ohio, or a Paramus, New Jersey? Hardly. There would be no cook; mother would be subscribing to Gourmet magazine. Robertson Ay’s salary would easily buy the paint, and Mr. Banks would be cleaning the leaves out of his gutters on a Sunday afternoon. No one in the Scarsdales of this country allows the house to get run down. It is not in the order of things to purchase services instead of paint.

Read The Secret Garden, and you find another world that I know about only in words. Here is a family living on a large estate staffed by servants who are devoted to the two generations living there. Here is a father who has no visible source of income. He neither reaps nor sows; he doesn’t even commute. He apparently never heard of permissiveness in raising children. He travels around Europe in search of himself, and no one resents his leaving his family to do it. Families of this kind had a basis in fact, but fact remote from me.

I have such faith in words that when I read about such families as a child, I thought that they were the norm and that the way I lived was subnormal, waiting for normal.

Where were the stories then about growing up in a small mill town where there was no one named Jones in your class? Where were the stories that made having a class full of Radasevitches and Gabellas and Zaharious normal? There were stories about the crowd meeting at the corner drugstore after school. Where were the stories that told about the store owner closing his place from 3:1 5 until 4:00 P.M. because he found that what he gained in sales of Coca-Cola he lost in stolen Hershey Bars? How come that druggist never seemed normal to me? He was supposed to be grumpy but lovable; the stories of my time all said so.

Where are the stories now about fathers who come home from work grouchy? Not mean. Not mad. Just nicely, mildly grouchy. Where are the words that tell about mothers who are just slightly hungover on the morning after New Year’s Eve? Not drunkard mothers. Just headachey ones. Where are the stories that tell about the pushy ladies? Not real social climbers. Just moderately pushy. Where are all the parents who are experts on schools? They are all around me in the suburbs of New Jersey and New York, in Pennsylvania and Florida, too. Where are they in books? Some of them are in my books.

And I put them there for my kids. To excuse myself to my kids. Because I have this foolish faith in words. Because I want to show it happening. Because for some atavistic, artistic, inexplicable reason, I believe that the writing of it makes normal of it.

Some of the words come from another family part of me. From being a mother. From the part of me that urges, “Say something else, too. Describe, sure, describe what life is like in these suburbs. Tell how it is normal to be very comfortable on the outside but very uncomfortable on the inside. Tell how funny it all is. But tell a little something else, too. What can it hurt? Tell a little something else — about how you can be a nonconformist and about how you can be an outsider. And tell how you are entitled to a little privacy. But for goodness’ sake, say all that very softly. Let the telling be like fudge-ripple ice cream. You keep licking vanilla, but every now and then you come to something darker and deeper and with a stronger flavor. Let the something-else words be the chocolate.”

The illustrations probably come from the kindergartener who lives inside, somewhere inside me, who says, “Silly, don’t you know that it is called show and tell? Hold up and show and then tell.” I have to show how Mrs. Frankweiler looks and how Jennifer looks. Besides, I like to draw, and I like to complete things, and doing the illustrations answers these simple needs.

And that is my metamorphosis; I guess it was really that and not a conversion at all. The egg that gives form to the caterpillar and then to the chrysalis was really meant to be a butterfly in the first place. Chemistry was my larval stage, and those nine years at home doing diaper service were my cocoon. And you see standing before you today the moth I was always meant to be. (Well, I hardly qualify as a butterfly.) A moth who lives on words. On January 13, after I had finished doing my Zorba Dance and after I had cried over the phone to Mae Durham and to Jean Karl, after I had said all the I can’t believe it’s and all the Oh, no, not really’s, I turned to my husband and asked a typical-wife question, “Did you ever think fifteen years ago when you married a li’l ole organic chemist from Farrell, Pennsylvania, that you were marrying a future Newbery winner and runner-up?” And my husband answered in typical-David fashion, “No, but I knew it would be a nice day when it happened.” And it was a nice day. It’s been a whole row of wonderful days since it happened. Thank you, Jean Karl, for helping to give Jennifer and Elizabeth and Claudia and Jamie that all important extra dimension, print on paper. Thank you, Mae Durham and all the members of the committee, for deciding that my words were special. And thank you, Mr. Melcher, for the medal that stamps them special. All of you, thank you, for giving me something that allows me to go home like Claudia — different on the inside where it counts.

Given at the meeting of the American Library Association in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 25, 1968. The Newbery Medal “for the most distinguished contribution to American Literature for children” was awarded to Mrs. Konigsburg for From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Atheneum). From the August 1968 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

The post Newbery Award Acceptance by Elaine L. Konigsburg appeared first on The Horn Book.

She also wrote many other books — several of which were on the Horn Book’s Fanfare list — and was an illustrator. Above is her groovy cover for the May/June 2002 Horn Book Magazine. Also from our archive, you can read her Newbery acceptance speech for Mixed-Up Files, along with a profile written by her husband, David, for the occasion, and one written by Laurie Konigsburg Todd after her mother won the Newbery for The View from Saturday. We also had some fun with her during the 2012 election season. (Jamie Kincaid for Republican VP!)

Konigsburg never wrote down to her readers. Many of her characters are sophisticated, intelligent, witty, unique, and savvy. She wrote about wannabe-witches (Jennifer), restless suburban kids (Mixed-Up Files), Jewish boys playing baseball (About the B’nai Bagels), historical women (A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, The Second Mrs. Giaconda), possibly-con-artist women (Father’s Arcane Daughter), outcasts, smarty-pantses, heroes — the list goes on.

Roger, whose own thoughts about Konigsburg are here, was quoted in her New York Times obituary. He also remembers leaving his warm bed at 4 am because of one of her stories.

She was truly a star and a Great Lady in the field of children’s literature.

The post E. L. Konigsburg (1930-2013) appeared first on The Horn Book.

 Linda Sue Park is delivering the 2013 Zena Sutherland Lecture on May 3rd at the Harold Washington Center, Chicago Public Library. Admission is free but reservations are required; go to zenasutherland.eventbrite.com to sign up. I’ll be there and hope you will be too!

The post 2013 Zena Sutherland Lecturer Linda Sue Park appeared first on The Horn Book.

A.

B.

C.

D.

This post is part of our “Guess who”? author and illustrator photo series. Click on the tag Guess who? to see all entries!

The post Guess who?: Great ladies appeared first on The Horn Book.

1. You were a book reviewer before you were a parent. How has the first job helped with the second?

Two words: review copies. After umpteen years of working at the Horn Book, I’ve amassed a pretty good and varied collection of children’s books. We’re never at a loss for something to read, and thankfully both kids love books (coincidence? Maybe, but having tons of books all over the house doesn’t hurt). There have been more than a few times that I’ve come upon one or both kids sitting (quietly!) and looking at a book—and that’s just the kind of help I need.

2. And how has the second job helped with the first?

Being a parent has and hasn’t informed my job as a book reviewer. What each of my kids likes is not an indicator of what other kids will like or of what makes an outstanding book. For example, Chloe can’t get enough of Blue’s [as in Clues] Sleepover Party, but that doesn’t mean I would recommend it to anyone else (unless that person deserves it).

I do like having my own captive audience to test drive reading books aloud, which helps a lot with reviewing picture books. And when they were infants, I even read some novels aloud to them—working and bonding at the same time!

Living with young children has allowed me to see childhood from a different angle. I recently reviewed Ole Konnecke’s Anton and the Battle, which I think captures perfectly how a four-year-old (boy, especially) thinks and plays. At one point in their proverbial pissing match, Anton and his frenemy, Luke, pretend to throw bombs at each other. I would have liked this book BC (before children), but I wouldn’t have had a clue how completely on-target the cartoony pretend-violent play is.

3. You have two preschoolers, a girl and a boy. Do you see any gender stereotyping in their book preferences?

My first reaction to this is that their preferences have more to do with their interests and temperaments than with their gender, but who knows? Jakob likes information and has a lot of patience; he’ll listen to a 128 page book about space if someone is willing to read it to him. He also likes fiction and nonfiction books about dinosaurs, construction, knights, firefighters, and other typical little boy topics, but he doesn’t limit himself to those things. If someone is reading a book, he’ll usually sit and listen, no matter what it’s about.

Chloe isn’t girly at all—she won’t look at a dress; her favorite color is black—but she does gravitate toward fiction rather than her big brother’s information books. She loves Curious George (like any self-respecting three-year-old), Leslie Patricelli’s board books, and any book with Humpty Dumpty in it. She likes folktales; Feodor Rojankovsky’s The Tall Book of Nursery Tales has been at the top of her morning story time pile for a few months now.

4. What are their current favorites?

Chloe and Jakob

Their favorites change from day to day, week to week. I asked this morning and they both said, “That superheroes book with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman [a.k.a. DC Super Heroes Storybook Collection].” Last week the answer would have been, “Traction Man!” (that’s Traction Man Is Here by Mini Grey). They were obsessed with that book for a few days. We read it over and over; we acted out the story (with improvised Traction Man outfits and a pet scrubbing brush); we made a special trip to the library to borrow the other two TM books. But this week Traction Man is off the radar. Jakob has been studying The Usborne Official Knight’s Handbook. Chloe wants us to read “Puss in Boots” (and only “Puss in Boots”) from Anne Rockwell’s collection, Puss in Boots and Other Tales.

Oh, and I probably shouldn’t admit this, but for the last year (or maybe it just feels like a year), Jakob’s #1 favorite? The thirty-two page 2012 Playmobil toy catalog.

 5. What, in your opinion, is the most misguided choice for a baby shower book?

Along with a Playmobil catalog, any book that speaks more to new parents and their experiences/wishes/hopes than to a baby or a child…that is if the gift giver’s intention is really and truly to give the baby a gift. I’m sure many parents would like those books’ sentiments (in fact, I know many parents do like them), but kids themselves won’t give a poopy diaper about them.

Join us on Thursday, April 25, 2013, for a big day focused on the littlest people.

The post Five Questions for Kitty Flynn appeared first on The Horn Book.

The post Our Bertha appeared first on The Horn Book.

The Morning News started its tournament of books

Our sis School Library Journal begins its Battle of the Books on Monday Tuesday, and I’ll be over here critiquing the judges in brackets of two and allowing one to “move forward,” where, eventually (and if I’ve done the math right) one shall face the BoB’s Big Kahuna judge, Frank Cottrell Boyce. I’m not doing this to be mean–unless somebody drives me to it–but to test my frequent assertion that there’s too much diplomacy in children’s book discussion (again, see the Silverman essay linked above). I am also interested in exploring what kind of criticism these non-professionals will employ: will they argue from personal taste, moral significance, reader appeal, aesthetic value? Each or all of these can work; what matters most in this contest is that the judge is able to express a clear preference for one book over another and say why. The prize is two one-year subscriptions to the Horn Book Magazine, one to the winning judge and another to the library of his or her choice.I’ll be judge and jury (shades of SLJ’s Lillian Gerhardt: raise your hand if you’re old enough to remember her infamous Billy Budd Button and Huck Finn Pin!)

The post Rural juror appeared first on The Horn Book.