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.
3 thoughts on “To This Great Stage of Fools: Born January 28th”
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….)
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….)