Sabine Baring-Gould, b. 1834. Victorian archaeologist, he had fifteen children and wrote the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers”. More information on his eccentricities here.
Vera B. Williams, b. 1927, children’s author and illustrator. She wrote and illustrated two of my favorites, A Chair for My Mother and Two Days on a River in a Red Canoe. Her bio sounds as if she’s led a colorful life: she helped start a “community” (sounds like a commune) in the hills of North Carolina and a school based on the Summerhill model. Then she moved to Canada and lived on a houseboat for a while–where she wrote her first book. Oh, and she spent a month in the federal penitentiary in West Virginia after a “peaceful blockade of the Pentagon.” Well, anyway, the books are great and not really counter-cultural at all.
Williams wrote one of our family favorites, too: More, More, More, Said the Baby.
And re: Children’s Blizzard. ‘read that last year. What an amazing book — a compelling drama (if you will) coupled with an education (in weather/climate, geography, history, etc.).
No one else wanted to talk about my (as another virtual friend called it) “MANdatory” reading list, eh? Ah, well.
Wishing you a beautiful Sunday, Sherry.
Melissa
I’d forgotten that A Chair for My Mother was NOT by Ezra Jack Keats! The illustrations certainly are similar.
Thanks for sharing. I always read this book to my students. (I teach 2nd grade….)