Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors - Hardcover

Cotter, Charis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1554511925 ISBN 13: 9781554511921

Publisher: Annick Press, 2009

Synopsis

Our childhood experiences shape us into the adults we become. Born to Write tells the stories of how six extraordinary children transformed early struggles into spellbinding bedtime reading for kids around the world. To ease the pain of being ostracized by her classmates, Madeleine L’Engle escaped to an invented world every night in her bedroom. Lucy Maud Montgomery lost her mother as a baby and her father appeared only sporadically throughout her life. And Philip Pullman, a seasoned traveler by age 10, used his long journeys by ship as inspiration for his remarkable novels. In Born to Write, Charis Cotter chronicles the early lives of these and other much-loved children’s writers, including Christopher Paul Curtis, C.S. Lewis and E.B.White, revealing how each author’s achievements and losses, triumphs and tragedies, helped shape our most beloved books. Interspersed throughout are sidebars highlighting other well-known children’s authors, such as Hans Christian Andersen and Louisa May Alcott, whose works served as inspiration.

About this title

About the Author

Charis Cotter is an award-winning author of books for adults and young readers. She lives in Toronto and Newfoundland.

Reviews

Grade 5 Up—The life stories of six authors are told, giving readers insight into the childhood experiences that shaped their work. From Lucy Maud Montgomery's loss of her mother and estrangement from her father in the late 1800s to Christopher Paul Curtis growing up in a strong family surrounded by racism in the 1960s, Cotter shows how the individuals' achievements, losses, tragic situations, and experiences led to the creation of many well-loved novels. C. S. Lewis, E. B. White, Madeline L'Engle, and Philip Pullman all had experiences that led them to create fantastic characters and stories. These writers were inspired by other great authors, such as Hans Christian Andersen and Louisa May Alcott, whose stories are interspersed throughout the book. Younger readers will find the presentation of the book appealing, with many colorful photographs and illustrations; however, more mature readers will gain the most enjoyment as they discover the backgrounds and inspirations of some of their favorite writers. A page of notes indicates the sources of direct quotes. An excellent resource for reports and pleasure reading.—Denise Moore, O'Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD
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As a boy, E. B. White felt small and unprotected in a huge, terrifying world. C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle both wrote letters home begging to be released from boarding schools they hated. Lucy Maud Montgomery struggled with a mean stepmother. Phillip Pullman moved often as a child through many countries and schools. Christopher Paul Curtis grew up in a strong, loving family, but he experienced racial prejudice. Written in a chatty, open style and illustrated with occasional photos and prints, this collective biography introduces a selection of well-known writers’ lives and their famous books. Readers may skip over the fictionalized vignettes that appear at the start of each chapter. Much more interesting are the passages about how the writers transformed their childhood struggles into great stories. Occasional notes also highlight the connections between some authors, while a bibliography of each author’s books, an additional bibliography of recommended resources about the authors, and source notes for direct quotes complete this accessible, thought-provoking, and fun-to-read volume. Grades 4-8. --Hazel Rochman

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt

Echoes of Childhood

If you love reading books, you know what it is like to lose yourself in a story. Your bedroom drops away and you're in the world of the book, side by side with the hero or heroine. Your ticket to those other worlds depends on the strength of your imagination and the power of the words you're reading. The best writers scoop you up and take you on a ride that ends only on the last page of the book.

To create this kind of magic, a writer needs a very special kind of imagination. Most children haven't yet learned to put limits on their daydreams; they can easily imagine flying, or skipping through time, or enjoying magical powers. Children who grow up to be writers have something extra. Along with a vivid imagination, they often have a driving need to create an imaginary world that's an improvement on the one they live in. Nearly all of the writers in this book had to endure hardships in their childhoods -- parents who died or abandoned them, isolation and bullying at school, or simply a lack of friends or grown-ups who understood and loved them. But somehow these children found the time and space to create their own secret worlds, which were much more intense and satisfying than their everyday lives.

And when they grew up, instead of forgetting what it felt like to be a child, they remembered, and put it into their books. Fragments of their childhood selves echo through their writing: the intriguing attic tunnel in C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, Meg's itchy feeling of never fitting in at school in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, the ghostly clock in L. M. Montgomery's The Story Girl.

What happens to people makes them who they are. This book tells the stories of how six extraordinary children transformed their childhood struggles into spellbinding bedtime reading for kids everywhere.

Edition details

• Publisher: Annick Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1554511925
• ISBN 13: 9781554511921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Fernandes Eugenie
• Number of pages: 168