As an author who has utilized multiple types of narrative structures, Armstrong believes that
A short story is only one of many narrative structures. We create narrative with jokes, ballads, tales, novels, poems, anecdotes, etc... While there are many satisfactions to be found in the conventional beginning-middle-end narrative that is common in short fiction for kids, I believe young readers can respond to many other forms of short narrative.[3]
After 9/11, she wrote that books can be the "enemy of violent zealotry" and work against chaos and fear.[4]
Mairhe Mehan
Intended for middle-school-aged readers, Armstrong wrote this series of five books about an Irish family living in Swampoodle, Washington, D.C. during the Civil War. The family- composed of a drunken father, his son- a bricklayer during the construction of the Capitol building- and his daughter Mairhe, who works at the Shinny, the local pub. There, Mairhe hears patrons discussing the war; though she believes the Irish should not take sides, others see it as "a means to free slaves who will then push them even further down the economic scale in the competitive job market."[5] Her brother Mike joins the Union army, causing her to contemplate the reasoning of Irish loyalty to either side of the war. While working she meets Walt Whitman, who acts as a symbolic unifier to her conflicting feelings by showing her how to open up to new people. In the afterword to Becoming Mary Mehan, Armstrong states that after finishing The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan, she took a train to northern Canada with only one book: a collection of essays about the pioneering naturalists of North America. With that, she received the inspiration for the plot of Mary Mehan Awake.[6] Although historically "well-researched," in one book Armstrong misplaced the building of the Capitol in the 1860s despite its completion by 1830. However, she accurately portrays Whitman in Brooklyn on the day after Lincoln's funeral.[5]The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan was listed on the 1998 Young Adult Choices list as a result of being voted in the top 30 by students in American schools grades 7-12.[7]
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World
This non-fiction narrative details the 1914-1916 expedition to Antarctica led by Sir Ernest Shackleton on the Endurance. His vessel was shipwrecked and frozen on ice for 10 months until pressure finally crushed it. The crew camped on the ice for five months before crossing the open in two open boats to South Georgia Island. The book contains more than 40 vintage photographs taken during the expedition.[8] For her writing and research Armstrong was selected as an Orbis Pictus Award winner.[9]
The Fire-Us Trilogy (Book 1: The Kindling, Book 2: Keepers of the Flame, and Book 3: The Kiln) is a series of post-apocalyptic young adult fiction by Jennifer Armstrong and Nancy Butcher. The series begins in 2007, five years after a plague of unknown origin has killed the vast majority of the human population. The plot concerns the family, a group of orphan children living in the small fictional town of Lazarus, Florida. The older children, now approaching adolescence, attempt to emulate the behavior of the "first families" to which they belonged before the plague. Armstrong and Butcher depict the children as traumatized and ill-equipped to handle the world around them, the youngest being barely more than toddlers at the time of the "Fire-Us," the children's name for the contagion. Teacher takes on the responsibility of educating the younger children, Baby, Doll, Teddy Bear (her brother) and Action Figure (Hunter's brother). Teacher compulsively collects information concerning the Fire-Us and the collapsed civilization in The Book, a scrapbook which she adds to in a trancelike state. In reality, The Book seems to be a meaningless collection of advertisements, half-remembered news segments, and bits of instruction manuals. Fourteen-year-old Mommy acts as a maternal figure to the younger children, attempting to feed them a nutritious diet. She refuses to leave the house, and suffers from extreme agoraphobia. Both Mommy and Teacher are frequently frustrated by Action Figure, who frequently skips lessons and meals to go out scavenging with Hunter, an older boy- also fourteen- who searches Lazarus for rapidly dwindling food.
As the family comes to grips with their increasingly desperate situation, they encounter a disturbed older boy who wanders into Lazarus dragging a mannequin on his back. The family calls him Angerman, a mispronunciation of "Anchorman", because of his tendency to give semi-coherent monologues in the style of a newscaster. The "news" often ends with Angerman succumbing to his own frustration at not being able to remember the events he is "reporting". Angerman's thought process is constantly interrupted by the hostile commentary of Bad Guy, the boy's name for the mannequin he carries with him. Angerman blames Bad Guy for the Fire-Us in particular, and frequently attacks the mannequin to "shut him up", although Angerman is the only one who hears Bad Guy "talking". Concurrent with Angerman's arrival is the discovery of Puppy and Kitty, two small children who speak only in animal noises. These children amaze the Family, as they clearly were born after the Fire-us, though all the adults were supposedly killed.
After hearing one of Angerman's "reports", the family hatches a plan to travel to Washington D.C. to find the President.[11] On their way, they encounter the Keepers, a group of religious fundamentalist adults living in an abandoned mall, and a helpful enclave of elderly women living in a retirement community. The Keepers, who name themselves after Bible verses, believe the Fire-us was a miracle sent to cleanse the Earth and allow the chosen ones to start afresh. An adolescent girl, Cory- named after a verse in Corinthians- has grown disillusioned with the movement after her older sister was "chosen" to become one of the leader's companions, and she joins the Family as they head to Camp David, where the President supposedly is, the Keepers hot on their trail.
At Camp David, it is revealed that the President is none other than the leader of the Keepers, and it was he who unleashed the original Fire-us in order to create the "Second Coming" of God while protecting himself and his followers in a bunker. Because all of the children from Lazarus are pre-pubescent at the time the virus was first released, they were exempt from the fictional disease which affects only those who produce sexual hormones. The President has since been bringing young girls to his camp in an attempt to recreate a new race all descended from him, subjecting the children born to these two girls to a trial by fire that few survive.[12]
Puppy and Kitty (who are revealed to be the children of Cory's sister), are captured and are going to be submitted to this trial. Before they can, Angerman kidnaps the President and holds him at gunpoint, despite the fact that the President is holding another vial of the Fire-us, which, if broken, could destroy the world again. Angerman is mad with grief, having realized that the President is, in fact, his father, and yet left himself, his brother, Sam, and his mother to die while he saved his followers. In the end, Cory manages to take the gun and lock herself and the President in one of the air-tight bunkers as the vial breaks, saving the world (it is implied she also shoots him and herself, rather than die of the disease). The series ends on a note of hope, as the family decides to head to Washington state in search of a new home and other survivors.
Works
Sunshine, moonshine"
The Puppy Project (1990)
Too Many Pets (1990)
Hugh Can Do (1992)
Chin Yu Min and the Ginger Cat, illustrated by Mary GrandPré (Crown Publishers, 1993)
Steal Away to Freedom (1993)
That Terrible Baby (1994)
Wild Rose Inn series (1994) — Ann of the Wild Rose Inn; Emily of the Wild Rose Inn; Bridie of the Wild Rose Inn; Laura of the Wild Rose Inn; Claire of the Wild Rose Inn; Grace of the Wild Rose Inn
The Whittler's Tale (1994)
Little Salt Lick and the Sun King (1994)
King Crow (1995)
Wan Hu is in the Stars (1995)
The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan (1996)
Lili the Brave (1997)
Foolish Gretel (1997)
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance (1998)
Mary Mehan Awake (1997)
Pockets, illus. Mary GrandPré (Knopf, 1998), picture book, OCLC36573735
Patrick Doyle is Full of Blarney (1999)
Pierre's Dream (1999), Armstrong and Susan Gaber
Spirit of Endurance (2000)
Dear Mr. President series (2000)
Thomas Jefferson: letters from a Philadelphia bookworm
Theodore Roosevelt: letters from a young coal miner
Becoming Mary Mehan (2002)
In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer (2002), Armstrong and Irene Gut Opdyke
Fire-Us trilogy (2002–2005), written by Armstrong and Nancy Butcher[1]
Book 1: The Kindling
Book 2: Keepers of the Flame
Book 3: The Kiln
Sunshine, Moonshine (2003)
Audubon: Painter of Birds in the Wild Frontier (2003), Armstrong and Joseph Anthony Smith
"Witness" in Shattered: Stories of Children and War (2003), edited by Armstrong
A Three-Minute Speech: Lincoln's Remarks at Gettysburg (2003), Armstrong and Albert Lorenz
Magnus at the Fire (2005), Armstrong and Owen Smith
Photo by Brady: a Picture of the Civil War (2005), Armstrong and Mathew B. Brady
A Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon, 1845 (2005), Armstrong and Linda Crew
The Water of Life: A Treatise on Urine Therapy (2005), Jennifer and John W. Armstrong
What a Song Can Do: 12 Riffs on the Power of Music (2006)
The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History (2006), Armstrong and Roger Roth
Once Upon a Banana (2006), Armstrong and David Small
Anything is Possible (2006)
The Poet's Basket (2006)
Black-eyed Susan (2008)
The Snowball (2009)
Minus the Morning (2009)
The Century for Young People: Changing America 1961-1999 (2009) Armstrong, Peter Jennings, and Todd Brewster
Time Enough for Love is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published in 1973. The book made the shortlist for the Nebula, Hugo and Locus awards for best science fiction novel of that year, although it did not win. It did win a retrospective Libertarian Futurist Society award: the Prometheus Hall of Fame award for 1988.
The Little House on the Prairie books comprise a series of American children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The stories are based on her childhood and adolescence in the American Midwest between 1870 and 1894. Eight of the novels were completed by Wilder, and published by Harper & Brothers in the 1930s and 1940s, during her lifetime. The name "Little House" appears in the first and third novels in the series, while the third is identically titled Little House on the Prairie. The second novel, meanwhile, was about her husband's childhood.
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder was an American writer. The Little House on the Prairie series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.
Rose Wilder Lane was an American writer and daughter of American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Along with two other female writers, Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, Lane is one of the more influential advocates of the American libertarian movement.
Katherine Womeldorf Paterson is an American writer best known for children's novels, including Bridge to Terabithia. For four different books published 1975–1980, she won two Newbery Medals and two National Book Awards. She is one of four people to win the two major international awards; for "lasting contribution to children's literature" she won the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1998 and for her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2006, the biggest monetary prize in children's literature. Also for her body of work she was awarded the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in 2007 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the American Library Association in 2013. She was the second US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, serving 2010 and 2011.
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine. Set in England, it is seen as a classic of English children's literature. The American edition was published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk and the British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson.
Young adult literature (YA) is literature, most often including novels, written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. The term YA was first used regularly in the 1960s in the United States. The YA category includes most of the genres found in adult fiction, with themes that include friendship, drugs and alcohol, and sexual and gender identity. Stories that focus on the challenges of youth may be categorized as problem novels or coming-of-age novels.
Jennifer June Rowe,, is an Australian author. Her crime fiction for adults is published under her own name, while her children's fiction is published under the pseudonyms Emily Rodda and Mary-Anne Dickinson.
David Almond is a British author who has written many novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim.
Waterland is a 1983 novel by Graham Swift published by William Heinemann. It is set in the The Fens of eastern England. It won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Suzanne Marie Collins is an American author and television writer. She is best known as the author of the young adult dystopian book series The Hunger Games. She is also the author of the children's fantasy series The Underland Chronicles.
Midori Snyder is an American writer of fantasy, mythic fiction, and nonfiction on myth and folklore. She has published eight novels for children and adults, winning the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati. Her work has been translated into French, Dutch, Italian and Turkish.
Kathryn Lasky is an American children's writer who also writes for adults under the names Kathryn Lasky Knight and E. L. Swann. Her children's books include several Dear America books, The Royal Diaries books, Sugaring Time, The Night Journey, Wolves of the Beyond, and the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series. Her awards include Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature, National Jewish Book Award, and Newbery Honor.
Marijane Agnes Meaker was an American writer who, along with Tereska Torres, was credited with launching the lesbian pulp fiction genre, the only accessible novels on that theme in the 1950s.
Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light.
On the Banks of Plum Creek is an autobiographical children's novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and published in 1937, the fourth of nine books in her Little House series. It is based on a few years of her childhood when the Ingalls family lived at Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, during the 1870s. The original dust jacket proclaimed, "The true story of an American pioneer family by the author of Little House in the Big Woods".
Rose Under Fire is a young adult historical novel by Elizabeth Wein, set in World War II and published in 2013.
Sherryl Rose Jordan was a New Zealand writer for children and young adults, specialising in fantasy and historical fiction. She wrote a number of children's and young adult works, published in New Zealand and overseas. She is best known for her books The Juniper Game and The Raging Quiet. In 2001, she received the Margaret Mahy Medal for her contribution to children's literature, publishing and literacy.
Jennifer Niven is a New York Times and international best selling American author who is best known for the 2015 young adult book, All the Bright Places.
Grace Hibbard was an American author and poet of the long nineteenth century. Hibbard had a large following among the women of California. Among her books were California Sunshine, California Violets, and Wild Roses of California. Some of her best-known poems included "The Engineer's Daughter" and "Waiting for Colin". Her short story, "Bummer and Lazarus", set in San Francisco, was translated into the German and printed in one of the leading papers published in the German language.
↑ Jennifer Armstrong (2003). "Narrative and Violence"(PDF). Horn Book Magazine. Vol.79, no.2. Retrieved March 11, 2012. Cited in Hauschildt, Patricia M. "Worlds of Terrorism: Learning through Young Adult Literature." The ALAN Review 33.3 (Summer 2006): 18–19
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
