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Penny Colman is an author of books, essays, stories, and articles for all ages. In 2005, her social history, Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History of Burial, was named one of the 100 Best of the Best Books for the 21st Century by members of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).
Penny Colman was born Penelope Granger Morgan on September 2, 1944, in Denver, Colorado, to her father, Norman Charles Morgan, and her mother, Marija (known as Maritza) Leskovar Morgan. She lived in Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Lexington, Kentucky, before her parents settled in north Warren, Pennsylvania, in 1949. Here, Colman, her parents, and her three brothers, all lived on the grounds of Warren State Hospital, a mental hospital where her father worked as a psychiatrist.[ citation needed ] In 1953, when Colman was nine years old, her parents bought a farm 6 miles (10 km) from the hospital. This same year, Colman's mother joined the staff of the local newspaper as a photographer and journalist and her father began writing a weekly column, "Everyday Psychology," for several newspapers. In 1962, Colman graduated from high school and in the fall she attended Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. After two years of college, Colman dropped out of college and decided to hitchhike through Europe. After she returned from Europe, her older brother Jon died from viral pneumonia at the age of twenty and her father died three years later from terminal cancer. Despite hardship, Colman graduated from The University of Michigan; earned a master of arts in teaching from Johns Hopkins University. Then she married Robert "Bob" Colman and had three sons, Jonathan, and twins; David and Stephen. After twenty-five years, Colman and her husband were divorced. [1] She now lives and writes in Englewood, New Jersey.
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 Pioneering Women War Correspondents by Penny Colman, YouTube video |
Colman writes predominantly in the genre of nonfiction and most often about women. She attributes her interest in the genre to parental influence. During Penny Colman's youth, her mother worked as a newspaper photo-journalist and Colman accompanied her on various assignments. [1] Colman’s father, a psychiatrist, wrote a weekly column that appeared in several newspapers. Immersed in these experiences during her formative years, she developed a belief “that nonfiction is a valuable vehicle for sharing true stories and discussing issues and ideas". [1] Throughout her childhood, Colman enjoyed family visits to museums, historical sites, and landmarks igniting an interest in history that continues today. She recognized the void in the historical record of women’s accomplishments and their subsequent impact on the nation (USA). She has written twelve nonfiction books concerning women’s struggles, achievements and contributions beginning to fill that void. Her latest book, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship that Changed History due for release March 2011, continues the effort. [1] In her book, Adventurous Women: Eight True Stories about Women Who Made a Difference, Colman defines her objective in this manner, "My intent is not to replace men but to add women (4). All of her books require extensive and meticulous research conducted solely by Colman and often includes "shoe leather research". [2] Colman explains her motivations for becoming a writer, "I became a writer because there are things that I have to say. Things that I have to write. Things that I feel passionate about, such as the importance of thinking and learning, of equality and justice, and of sharing and caring". [3]
Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II received the Orbis Pictus Honor Award for Outstanding Nonfiction from the NCTE and an International Reading Association’s Teachers’ Choice and Young Adult Choice. [4]
Her book of essays, Adventurous Women: Eight True Stories About Women Who Made A Difference, was named a Notable Trade Book. [5] Since 2003, Colman has been a distinguished lecture at Queens College, the City University of New York. Her academic writings include, “A New Way to Look at Literature: A Visual Model for Analyzing Fiction and Nonfiction Texts,” Language Arts, 2007. [6] She was honored by the New Jersey State Legislature for books and public appearances that have "contributed to the advancement of women."
Adventurous Women: Eight True Stories about Women Who Made a Difference, is a collection of eight enriching and inspirational stories of pioneering 19th century women. The book provides a rich and compelling look at the heroic lives of eight American women from racially and ethically diverse backgrounds who defied the odds to become historic figures. Adventurous Women profiles are Louise Boyd, Arctic explorer; Mary Gibson Henry, botanist; Juana Briones, Hispanic landowner; Alice Hamilton, medicine pioneer; Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, Katherine Wormeley, Civil War nurse, and Peggy Hull, reporter. The book details how all eight women rose above the gender stereotypes and social limitations of their time to achieve immeasurable success in their respective fields.
The book is a favorite among critics for young readers because of its easy to read style and focus on little known women history. Adventurous Women is listed on several independent and library reading lists for school age readers.
Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History of Burial is an illustrated social history of the subjects of death and burial across cultures written by Penny Colman. The comprehensive text, enriched with true stories both humorous and poignant, includes a list of burial sites of famous people, images in the arts associated with death, fascinating epitaphs and gravestone carvings, a chronology and a glossary, and over a hundred black-and-white photographs, most of which were taken by the author.. It was named one of the 100 Best of the Best Books for the 21st Century. [7]
Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on The Home Front In World War II is an illustrated social history of the lives and contributions of women workers during World War II written by Penny Colman. There are more than sixty archival black-and-white photographs (including one of Norma Jeane Baker Dougherty, who later changed her name to Marilyn Monroe), famous posters, advertisements, and cartoons. The author explains the origins of the phrase “Rosie the Riveter.” There are a Select List of Women’s Wartime Jobs, Facts & Figures about Women War Workers, Chronology, and an extensive bibliography. Rosie the Riveter received the Orbis Pictus Honor Award for Outstanding Nonfiction and an International Reading Association’s Teachers’ Choice and Young Adult Choice. [4]
Awards for Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II
Awards for Girls: A History of Growing up Female in America
Awards for Where the Action Was: Women War Correspondents in World War II
Awards for Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom
Award for A Woman Un-afraid: The Achievements of Frances Perkins
Award for Mother Jones and the March of the Mill Children
Award for Strike!: The Bitter Struggle of American Workers from Colonial Times to the Present
Additional Honors
Rosie the Riveter is an allegorical cultural icon in the United States who represents the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who joined the military. She is widely recognized in the "We Can Do It!" poster as a symbol of American feminism and women's economic advantage. Similar images of women war workers appeared in other countries such as Britain and Australia. The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. Images of women workers were widespread in the media in formats such as government posters, and commercial advertising was heavily used by the government to encourage women to volunteer for wartime service in factories. Rosie the Riveter became the subject and title of a Hollywood film in 1944.
Geraldine Hoff Doyle was an American woman who had been widely and mistakenly promoted in the media as the possible real-life model for the World War II era "We Can Do It!" poster, later thought to be an embodiment of the iconic World War II character Rosie the Riveter. However, it was later shown that the 1942 news wire service photograph likely depicts another young war worker, Naomi Parker.
Russell A. Freedman was an American biographer and the author of nearly 50 books for young people. He may be known best for winning the 1988 Newbery Medal with his work Lincoln: A Photobiography.
Deborah Hopkinson is an American writer of over seventy children's books, primarily historical fiction, nonfiction and picture books.
True Story is an American magazine published by True Renditions, LLC. It launched in 1919 and was the first of the confessions magazines genre. It carried the subtitle "Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction".
Diane Swanson was a Canadian writer of science books for children.
Phillip M. Hoose is an American writer of books, essays, stories, songs, and articles. His first published works were written for adults, but he turned his attention to children and young adults to keep up with his daughters. His work has been well received and honored more than once by the children's literature community. He won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Nonfiction, for The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (2004), and the National Book Award, Young People's Literature, for Claudette Colvin (2009).
"We Can Do It!" is an American World War II wartime poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost female worker morale.
Candace Groth Fleming is an American writer of children's books, both fiction and non-fiction. She is the author of more than twenty books for children and young adults, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize-honored The Family Romanov and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award-winning biography, The Lincolns, among others.
Elizabeth Partridge is an American writer, the author of more than a dozen books from young-adult nonfiction to picture books to photography books. Her books include Marching for Freedom, as well the biographies John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth, This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie, and Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange. Her latest book is the middle grade novel, Dogtag Summer.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is a 2009 young adult nonfiction book by Phillip Hoose, recounting the experiences of Claudette Colvin in Montgomery, Alabama, during the Civil Rights Movement.
Connie Field is an American film director known for her work in documentaries.
Sweethearts of Rhythm is a 2009 book by Marilyn Nelson and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, published by Dial Books for Young Readers. It is about various musical instruments in a pawnshop poetically reminiscing about the jazz band, International Sweethearts of Rhythm.
Melissa Sweet is an American illustrator and writer of children's books of nearly 100 books.
Tonya K. Bolden is an American writer best known for her works of children's literature, especially children's nonfiction. Bolden has authored, co-authored, collaborated on, or edited more than forty books. Hillary Rodham Clinton praised her 1998 book 33 Things Every Girl Should Know in a speech at Seneca Falls, N.Y. on the 150th anniversary of the first Women's Rights Convention. Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl (2005), her children's biography of Maritcha Rémond Lyons, was the James Madison Book Award Winner and one of four honor books for the American Library Association’s Coretta Scott King Author Award. M.L.K.: Journey of a King (2007) won the Orbis Pictus award from the National Council of Teachers of English, the organization’s highest award for children’s nonfiction, and the next year, her George Washington Carver (2008) was one of five honor books for the same award. In 2016, the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C. selected Bolden for its Nonfiction Award in recognition of her entire body of work, which, according to the award, has “contributed significantly to the quality of nonfiction for children.”.
Mildred Pitts Walter is an American children's book writer, known for her works featuring African-American protagonists. Walter has written over 20 books for young readers, including fiction and nonfiction. Several of her books have won or been named to the honor list of the Coretta Scott King Awards. A native of Louisiana who later moved to Denver, Walter was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. She published her autobiography, Something Inside So Strong: Life in Pursuit of Choice, Courage, and Change, in 2019.
Tanya Lee Stone is an American author of children's and young adult books. She writes narrative nonfiction for middle-grade students and young adults, as well as nonfiction picture books. Her stories often center women and people of color.
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream is a nonfiction children's book by Tanya Lee Stone, originally published February 24, 2009 by Candlewick Press, then republished September 27, 2011. The book tells the story of the Mercury 13 women, who, in 1958, joined NASA and completed testing to become astronauts.
Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America's First Black Paratroopers is a nonfiction book geared toward children, written by Tanya Lee Stone and published January 22, 2013 by Candlewick Press. The book tells the story of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed The Triple Nickles, an all-Black airborne unit of the United States Army during World War II.
Mara Rockliff is an American author of children's books specializing in works based on true stories. Her book Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France won an Orbis Pictus Honor from the National Council of Teachers of English. The American Library Association selected her book Sweet Justice: Georgia Gilmore and the Montgomery Bus Boycott for a Sibert Honor. She also received the Golden Kite Award for Me and Momma and Big John.
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