The Cartoonist - Hardcover

Byars, Betsy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670205567 ISBN 13: 9780670205561

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 1978

Synopsis

In the face of his mother's insensitivity and his grandfather's self-absorption, Alfie draws cartoons in his own special attic room, until events force him to defend and come out of his private world

About this title

About the Author

Betsy Byars began her writing career rather late in life. "In all of my school years, . . . not one single teacher ever said to me, 'Perhaps you should consider becoming a writer,'" Byars recalls. "Anyway, I didn't want to be a writer. Writing seemed boring. You sat in a room all day by yourself and typed. If I was going to be a writer at all, I was going to be a foreign correspondent like Claudette Colbert in Arise My Love. I would wear smashing hats, wisecrack with the guys, and have a byline known round the world. My father wanted me to be a mathematician." So Byars set out to become mathematician, but when she couldn't grasp calculus in college, she turned to English. Even then, writing was not on her immediate horizon.

First, she married and started a family. The writing career didn't emerge until she was 28, a mother of two children, and living in a small place she called the barracks apartment, in Urbana, Illinois. She and her husband, Ed, had moved there in 1956 so he could attend graduate school at the University of Illinois. She was bored, had no friends, and so turned to writing to fill her time. Byars started writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post, Look,and other magazines. As her family grew and her children started to read, she began to write books for young people and, fortunately for her readers, discovered that there was more to being a writer than sitting in front of a typewriter.

"Making up stories and characters is so interesting that I'm never bored. Each book has been a different writing experience. It takes me about a year to write a book, but I spend another year thinking about it, polishing it, and making improvements. I always put something of myself into my books -- something that happened to me. Once a wanderer came by my house and showed me how to brush my teeth with a cherry twig; that went in The House of Wingscopyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

A saucily told, sparely written story of a boy who finds his only refuge in the attic, where he can spend hours drawing. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1978
• ISBN 10: 0670205567
• ISBN 13: 9780670205561
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 119
• Illustrator: Cuffari Richard