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.

Lesson plan for teaching A Chair for My Mother.