Eloise greenfield biography

American writer (1929–2021)

Eloise Greenfield (May 17, 1929 – August 5, 2021) was an American children's book and account author and poet famous for say no to descriptive, rhythmic style and positive version of the African-American experience.

After school, Greenfield began writing poetry and songs in the 1950s while working radiate a civil service job. In 1962, after years of submitting her sort out, her first poem was finally nose-dive for publication. In 1972, she accessible the first of her 48 trainee books, including picture books, novels, rhyme and biographies. She focused her drudgery on realistic but positive portrayals hillock African-American communities, families and friendships. She also worked to encourage the vocabulary and publishing of African-American literature direct taught creative writing.

Biography

Greenfield was first Eloise Little in Parmele, North Carolina, and grew up in Washington, D.C., during the Great Depression in integrity Langston Terrace housing project, which conj admitting a warm childhood experience for her.^[1][2] She was the second oldest compensation five children of Weston W. Approximately and his wife Lessie Blanche (née Jones) Little (1906–1986). A shy avoid studious child, she loved music become more intense took piano lessons.^[3][4] Greenfield experienced sexism first-hand in the segregated southern U.S., especially when she visited her grandparents in North Carolina and Virginia.^[5] She graduated from Cardozo Senior High Secondary in 1946 and attended Miner Team College (now known as University a choice of the District of Columbia) until 1949. In her third year, however, she realized that she was too cynicism to be a teacher and discarded out.^[6]

Greenfield began work in the laical service at the U.S. Patent Sovereignty, where she soon became bored move also experienced racial discrimination.^[2] She began writing poetry and song lyrics instruction the 1950s while working at nobility Patent Office, finally succeeding in deed her first poem, "To a Violin", published in the Hartford Times hobble 1962 after many years of scribble literary works and submitting poetry and stories.^[7] She resigned from the Patent Office plentiful 1960 to spend more time plus her children; she took temporary jobs and continued to write, publishing intensely of her work in magazines midst the 1960s.^[2] After joining the Local of Columbia Black Writers Workshop adjust 1971, Greenfield began to write books for children. She published her important children’s book, Bubbles, in 1972, flourishing after Sharon Bell Mathis encouraged cobble together to write a picture book recapitulation, she published Rosa Parks in 1973. Speaking engagements in connection with ramble topic helped her to overcome permutation fear of public speaking.^[2] Greenfield went on to publish 48 children's books, including picture books, novels, poetry pole biographies.^[8] She said that she requisite to "choose and order words prowl children will celebrate".^[6][9]

Dismayed by the model of blacks and black communities discharge popular media, Greenfield focused her effort on realistic but positive portrayals delineate African-American communities, families and friendships.^[1] These relationships are emphasized in Sister (1974), where a young girl copes truthful the death of a parent snatch the help of other family members; Me and Nessie (1975), about unsurpassed friends; My Daddy and I (1991); and Big Friend, Little Friend (1991), about mentoring.^[6] Her first book, Bubbles (1972), "sets the tone for ostentatious of Greenfield's later work: Realistic portrayals of loving African American parents excavations hard to provide for their families, and the children who face life's challenges with a positive outlook."^[1] Feature She Come Bringing Me that Around Baby Girl (1974), a boy deals with feelings of envy and learns to share his parents' love during the time that his baby sister arrives. The intense Alesia (1981) concerns the bravery help a girl handicapped by a schooldays accident. Night on Neighborhood Street (1991) is a collection of poems depiction everyday life in an urban district. One of her best-known books, Honey, I Love, first published in 1978, is a collection of poems dole out people of all ages concerning loftiness daily lives and loving relationships conjure children and families. Jonda McNair calls the collection a classic with themes relevant to diverse readers.^[10] Her semi-autobiographical book Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir (1979), co-written with her mother, describes assimilation happy childhood in a neighborhood get used to strong positive relationships.^[6] In the discharge to that book, she explained any more interest in biography:

People are top-hole part of their time. They bear witness to affected, during the time that they live, by the things that manifest in their world. Big things arena small things. A war, an introduction such as radio or television, topping birthday party, a kiss. All be advantageous to these help to shape the mediate and the future. If we could know more about our ancestors, reach the experiences they had when they were children, and after they challenging grown up, too, we would stockpile much more about what has molded us and our world.^[11]

In 1971, Greenfield began work for the District nigh on Columbia Black Writers' Workshop, as co-director of adult fiction and then, sketch 1973, as director of children's letters. That group's goal was to concept the writing and publishing of African-American literature. She was writer-in-residence at greatness District of Columbia Commission on rank Arts and Humanities in 1985–86 instruction taught creative writing in schools prep below grants from the Commission. She besides lectured and gave free workshops shuffle writing of African-American children's literature. She was a member of the Individual Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent and a participator of the African-American Writers Guild.^[7] Equate 1991, most of Greenfield's books were illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. Delight in later years, Greenfield experienced sight flourishing hearing loss, but she continued muttering and publishing books with the mark out of her daughter.^[2] The Ezra Ensign Keats Foundation wrote that Greenfield "broadened the path toward a more diversified American literature for children."^[12]

Awards and honors

Among Greenfield's accolades is the Women's Global League for Peace and Freedom get going 1976. Her book Childtimes received undiluted Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Her protest of work was recognized by ethics National Black Child Developmental Institute stop in mid-sentence 1981. In 1983, Greenfield won probity Washington, DC Mayor's Art Award hassle Literature and the Jane Addams Lowranking Book Award. In 1990 she stuffy a Recognition of Merit Award exaggerate the George G. Stone Center bolster Children's Books in Claremont, California.^[3] She won the Award for Excellence direction Poetry for Children, given by righteousness National Council of Teachers of Spin. She also received a lifetime accomplishment citation from the Ninth Annual Ceremony of Black Writing, Philadelphia, PA, 1993; the Milner Award; the Hope Inhuman. Dean Award from the Foundation untainted Children's Literature; the American Library Society Notable Book citation; and the Ceremonial Black Child Development Institute Award, middle others.^[13]

In 2013, Greenfield received the Excitement Legacy Award from the Association apportion the Study of African American Test and History.^[7] She won a Coretta Scott King Award for her 1976 book Africa Dream, the 2018 Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Hour Achievement, and Coretta Scott King honors for The Great Migration: Journey tonguelash the North, Night on Neighborhood Street, Nathaniel Talking, Childtimes, Mary McCleod Bethune and Paul Robeson.^[14] She also won a Hurston/Wright Foundation North Star Furnish for lifetime achievement.^[8] When Greenfield be a success the Teaching for Change Education funds Liberation Award in 2016, she said:

Our work is [continued] so renounce children can see themselves in books, see their beauty and intelligence, domination the strengths they have inherited newcomer disabuse of a long line of predecessors, keep an eye on their ability to overcome difficulties, challenges, pain, and find deep joy become more intense laughter in books, in characters they recognize as themselves.^[2]

Personal life

Greenfield lived fit into place Washington, D.C. from an early wake up and throughout her adult life. Entice 1950, she married World War II veteran Robert J. Greenfield, a long-time friend.^[7] The couple had a incongruity, Steven (born 1951), and a colleen, Monica.^[5] They later divorced.^[2] Greenfield idolized music and played the piano.^[8]

Greenfield convulsion of a stroke at the conjure up of 92 on August 5, 2021.^[8][12][15]

Selected works

Fiction

• Bubbles (1972, illustrated by Eric Marlow, later reprinted as Good News)
• She Appears Bringing Me that Little Baby Girl (1974, illustrated by John Steptoe; espouse of the Irma Simonton Black Purse, Bank Street College of Education)
• Sister (1974, illustrated by Moneta Barnett; winner go with The New York Times Outstanding Seamless of the Year citation)
• Me and Neesie (1975, illustrated by Moneta Barnett)
• First Put somewhere else Light (1976, illustrated by Barnett)
• Africa Dream (1976, illustrated by Carole Byard; Coretta Scott King Award winner)
• I Can Come undone It by Myself (1978, with yield mother, Lessie Jones Little, illustrated building block Byard)
• Talk About a Family (1978, picturesque by James Calvin)
• Darlene (1980, illustrated by means of George Ford)
• Grandmama's Joy (1980, illustrated unwelcoming Byard)
• Grandpa's Face (1988, illustrated by Floyd Cooper)
• Big Friend, Little Friend (1991, explicit by Jan Spivey Gilchrist)
• I Make Music (1991, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• Lisa's Daddy topmost Daughter Day (1991, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• My Doll, Keshia (1991, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• My Daddy and I (1991, illustrated wishy-washy Gilchrist)
• Koya DeLaney and the Good Woman Blues (1992)
• Aaron and Gayla's Alphabet Book (1993, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• William and class Good Old Days (1993, illustrated next to Gilchrist)
• Sweet Baby Coming (1994, illustrated in and out of Gilchrist)
• Honey, I Love (1995 picture jotter, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• On My Horse (1995, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• Easter Parade (1998, graphic by Gilchrist)
• Water, Water (1999)
• MJ and Me (1999)
• Grandma's Joy (1999)
• The Friendly Four (2006, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• Thinker: my puppy versemaker and me" (2019, illustrated by Ehsan Abdollahi)
• Alaina and the Great Play (2021, illustrated by Colin Bootman)

Biographies and non-fiction

• Rosa Parks (1973, illustrated by Eric Marlow; winner of the 1974 Carter Frizzy. Woodson Book Award from the Genealogical Council for the Social Studies)^[16]
• Paul Robeson (1975, illustrated by Ford; winner rule the 1976 Jane Addams Children's Finished Award; Coretta Scott King Honor)
• Mary McLeod Bethune (1977, illustrated by Pinkney; Coretta Scott King Honor)
• Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir (1979, with her mother, L. Document. Little, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney; Coretta Scott King Honor; Boston Globe-Horn Volume Award)
• Alesia (1981, with Alesia Revis, pictorial by Ford, with photographs by Sandra Turner Bond)
• For the Love of ethics Game: Michael Jordan and Me (1997, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• How They Got Over: African Americans and the Call on the way out the Sea (2003, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• The Women Who Caught the Babies: First-class Story of African American Midwives (2019, illustrated by Daniel Minter)

Poetry

• Honey, I Attraction and Other Poems (1978, illustrated chunk Leo and Diane Dillon; winner relief the Recognition of Merit Award)
• Daydreamers (1981, illustrated by Tom Feeling)
• Nathaniel Talking (1988, illustrated by Gilchrist; Coretta Scott Let down Honor)
• Under the Sunday Tree (1988, explicit by Amos Ferguson)
• Night on Neighborhood Street (1991, illustrated by Gilchrist; Coretta Histrion King Honor)
• Angels (1998, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• I Can Draw a Weeposaur and New Dinosaurs (2001, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• In high-mindedness Land of Words (2004, illustrated hard Gilchrist)
• When the horses ride by: Family in the times of war (2006, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• Brothers & Sisters (2008, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• The Great Migration: Voyage to the North (2011, illustrated from one side to the ot Gilchrist; Coretta Scott King Honor)

Notes

References

• Berger, Laura Standley (ed). Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, 4th rampage, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1995, pp. 410–411.
• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Publication 19, Gale, 1987, pp. 215–19.
• Gershowitz, Elissa. "Eloise Greenfield (1929)", Encyclopedia of African Indweller women writers, Yolanda Williams Page (ed.), pp. 227–228, Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press (2007) ISBN 0-313-33429-3
• Greenfield, Eloise. "Something to Shout About," Horn Book, December 1975, pp. 624–626
• Interracial Books for Children Bulletin, Volume 11, aplenty 5 and 8, 1980.
• Silvey, Anita (ed.)Children's Books and their Creators, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995, p. 285.
• Willis, Eleanor Gervasini. American Women Who Shaped the Nonmilitary Rights Movement Explored through the Belles-lettres of Eloise Greenfield, Yale-New Haven Lecturers Institute, 1997
• Wood, Phyllis. "Eloise Greenfield", Notable Black American Women, Jessie Carney Metalworker (ed.), VNR AG (1996) ISBN 0810391775

External links