Barbara Wersba | |
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| Born | August 19, 1932 Chicago |
| Died | February 18, 2018 (aged 85) Englewood, New Jersey |
| Alma mater | Bard College |
| Genre | Children's |
Barbara Wersba (August 19, 1932 Chicago - February 18, 2018 Englewood, New Jersey) was an American youth and children's book author.
Barbara Wersba grew up in California and later in New York City, where she attended a private school and attended theater workshops. She studied at Bard College. After graduation, she returned to Greenwich Village and took acting lessons with Paul Mann. After several years at the theater, she began writing in the 1960s. [1]
She is the author of thirty children's and teen books. The Dream Watcher was first published in 1968. In 1973, she won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Children's Literature Award) for Run softly, go fast, and in 1985, she was nominated for the award for The carnival in my mind. In 1977 she was nominated for the prestigious National Book Award for Tunes for a Small Harmonica . In addition, Wersba worked for many years as an author for the New York Times Review of Books. [1] In 1994, she founded her own, small publishing house with The Bookman Press. [2]
She is best known for her work for young adolescents. At the center of her novels are often sensitive, often artistically gifted young people who feel misunderstood in their family environment, and find encouragement and self-affirmation in friendships with more unconventional, sometimes significantly older people. [3] [4]
Barbara Ehrenreich is an American author and political activist who has been called "a veteran muckraker" by The New Yorker. During the 1980s and early 1990s she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She is a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist, and author of 21 books. Ehrenreich is perhaps best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America; a memoir of Ehrenreich's three-month experiment surviving on a series of minimum wage jobs. She is a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award.
The glass harmonica, also known as the glass armonica, glass harmonium, bowl organ, hydrocrystalophone, or simply the armonica or harmonica, is a type of musical instrument that uses a series of glass bowls or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tones by means of friction. It was invented in 1761 by U.S. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
Elizabeth Janet Gray Vining was an American professional librarian and author who tutored Emperor Akihito of Japan in English while he was crown prince. She was also a noted author, whose children's book Adam of the Road received the Newbery Medal in 1943.
Susan Shreve is an American novelist, memoirist, and children's book author. She has published fifteen novels, most recently More News Tomorrow (2019), and a memoir Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood (2007). She has also published thirty books for children, most recently The Lovely Shoes (2011), and edited or co-edited five anthologies. Shreve co-founded the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing program at George Mason University in 1980, where she teaches fiction writing. She is the co-founder and the former chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City.
Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), and The Dutch House (2019). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Prometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by the philosopher Paul Kurtz. The publisher's name was derived from Prometheus, the Titan from Greek mythology who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to man. This act is often used as a metaphor for bringing knowledge or enlightenment.
Charlotte Zolotow was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of many books for children. She wrote about 70 picture book texts.
M. K. Brown is an American cartoonist and painter whose work has appeared in many publications, including National Lampoon (1972-1981), Mother Jones, Wimmen's Comix, The New Yorker, Playboy, among others. She has written several books, created animations for The Tracey Ullman Show, and was a contributing artist to the "comic jam" graphic novel The Narrative Corpse. She is also an accomplished painter with work in galleries and many private collections.
Maia Teresa Wojciechowska was a Polish-American writer best known for children's and young adult fiction. Her first book and two books for adults were published under her married name Maia Rodman.
Jerry Pinkney was an American illustrator and writer of children's literature. Pinkney illustrated over 100 books since 1964, including picture books, nonfiction titles and novels. Pinkney's works addressed diverse themes and were usually done in watercolors.
Martin Waddell is a writer of children's books from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He may be known best for his picture book texts featuring anthropomorphic animals, especially the Little Bear series illustrated by Barbara Firth.
John Steptoe was an author and illustrator for children’s books dealing with aspects of the African-American experience. He is best known for Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, which was acknowledged by literary critics as a breakthrough in African history and culture.
Tunes for a Small Harmonica is a novel by Barbara Wersba about an adolescent tomboy named J.F. McAllister. It was originally published by Dell Publishing but was then reprinted by Harper and Row publishing. It was a finalist for the 1977 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The novel has been translated into Catalan, Dutch, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.
My Weird School is a series of humorous chapter books written by Dan Gutman and illustrated by Jim Paillot, first published in July 2004. Further series include My Weird School Daze (2008-2011), My Weirder School (2011-2014), My Weirdest School (2015-2018) and My Weirder-est School (2019-).
Rita Williams-Garcia is an American writer of novels for children and young adults . In 2010, her young adult novel Jumped was a National Book Award finalist for Young People's Literature. She won the 2011 Newbery Honor Award, Coretta Scott King Award, and Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for her book One Crazy Summer. She won the PEN/Norma Klein Award. Her 2013 book, P.S. Be Eleven, was a Junior Literary Guild selection, a New York Times Editors Choice Book, and won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2014. In 2016 her book Gone Crazy in Alabama won the Coretta Scott King Award. In 2017, her book Clayton Byrd Goes Underground was a finalist for the National Book Award for young people's literature.
Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American poet and author. She is the author of the young adult novels The Poet X, With the Fire on High, and Clap When You Land. The Poet X is a New York Times Bestseller, National Book Award Winner, and Carnegie Medal winner. She is also the winner of the 2019 Michael L. Printz Award, the 2018 Pura Belpre Award, and the Boston-Globe Hornbook Award Prize for Best Children’s Fiction of 2018. She lives in Washington, DC.
Shirley Gordon (1921-2008) was an American writer of radio programs, television shows, and children's books.
Anica Mrose Rissi is an American author of children's books and young adult novels. Her first book, Anna, Banana, and the Friendship Split, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2015. Her nonfiction pieces have been published by the New York Times and The Writer magazine.
Laura Freeman is a children's book illustrator. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She has illustrated many books, and done work for Highlights for Children. In a review of the picture book version of Hidden Figures, writing for School Library Journal, Megan Kilgallen said "Freeman’s full-color illustrations are stunning and chock-full of details, incorporating diagrams, mathematical formulas, and space motifs throughout... enhancing the whole book." She shared the 2019 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work: Children with writer Margot Lee Shetterly for Hidden Figures.
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