Forgotten Author of the Week - Lois Lenski

Because I would feel bad to call any of the authors I am going to go see as Forgotten, I scoured the internet for books that influenced one of those writers. Lois Lowry said that one of her favorite authors as a kid was Lois Lensky, not just because they shared a name, but also because she loved her book, Strawberry Girl.

Lois Lenski, born in Springfield, Ohio in 1893, was a popular and prolific children's writer. In 1946 she was awarded the coveted Newbery Medal for Strawberry Girl. For over fifty years Lois Lenski pursued her professional career as an illustrator and author of books for children. During that time she illustrated some fifty books for other authors, and wrote and illustrated nearly 100 of her own books. Lenski's writing included picture books and stories for very young children as well as intermediate forks for older children and young adults. Although, she wrote mostly prose, Leski also published books of

poetry, songs, and plays for children.

Spurred by her first born son Stephen, Lenski began her "Mr. Small" series with The Little Family (1932) and The Little Auto (1934). In the early stages of her writing in the 1930s Lenski wrote "a group of imaginative stories for p

ure amusem

ent." These included Grandmother Tippytoe, Arabella and Her Aunts andBenny and His Penny. Lenski next moved into historical fiction, beginning with Phebe Fairchild, Her Book (1936), a story based on the Lenski farmhouse in Connecticut, built in 1790. Over the next decade Lenski wrote six more historical books including Bound Girl of Cobble Hill (1938), Blueberry Corners (1940) and Indian Captive (1941).Phebe Fairchild and Indian Captive both were named Newbery Honor books. As a change of pace from her intensely researched historical books, Lenski also published picture books including Sugarplum House (1934) and Gooseberry Garden (1935). She continued to illustrate the works of other writers, most notably Maud Hart Lovelace's first four Betsy Tacy books. She worked very closely with Lovelace and her publishers to make the books true to their real-life context.

During the 1940s two other major factors, her travels and her grandson, influenced Lois Lenski's writing. Due to poor health, Lenski was ordered by her physician to get away from the fierce Connecticut winters. She and Arthur Covey chose to spend winters in the South. It was during her travels that Lenski began research and writing on her series of regional books. Beginning with Bayou Suzette (1943), based on life in the Louisian

a backcountry, Lenski wrote some 16 regional books over the next twenty years. Perhaps her most successful regional story was Strawberry Girl (1945), winner of the Newbery Medal in 1946.

Inspired by her grandson, David Chisholm, Margaret'

s son, Lenski began the "Davy" series of books in the mid-1940s. David lived with his grandparents during the summers of 1943-1945 and was initially a very difficult child. Lenski's grandmotherly kindness finally won him over and his childhood activities became the basis for a series of six picture books including Davy's Day (1943) and A Surprise for Davy (1947).

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Lenski published the Ro

undabout series, also based on various areas of the U. S., but written for somewhat younger children. Much like the regional series, the Roundabout books explore the geographically and culturally diverse lives of children from peanut farms (Peanuts for Billy Ben, 1952), to cranberry bogs (Berries in the Scoop, 1956) and from housing projects (Project Boy, 1954) to Indian reservations (

Little Sioux Girl, 1968).

Although Lenski suffered from illness again in the early 1950s, she gradually recovered and resumed her writing. Lenski and her husband began

to spend half the year in Florida and built a house there in 1951. Arthur Covey, a man blessed with near perfect health all his life, became seriously ill in 1958. Although he resumed sketching and painting in their Florida home, he succumbed to his illness in February 1960. Lenski eventually sold the Greenacres farm in Connecticut and made her home in Florida year round. She continued writing in her later years, publishing her autobiography in 1972. In September 1974 at 80 year

s of age, Lois Lenski died at her home in Florida.

Lenski's many books have become classics in children's literature. Her books depicted children's lives much more realistically than other children's authors. She enthusiastically tackled areas and subjects long neglected in writing for children. The p

opularity of her works and their distribution in other languages are testimony both to her skill as a writer and to her continuing appeal to children.