It’s the birthday of Ellen Raskin (1928-1984, #diedtooyoung), author of The Westing Game (1978), a middle grade murder mystery novel that won the 1979 Newbery Medal and the undying devotion of a bazillion readers, including Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, who rereads the novel once a year. The novel begins, “The sun sets in the [...]
It’s the birthday of R.L. Stine (b. 1943), whose horror books for children have sold more than 400 million copies, landing him on all those bestselling-authors-of-all-time lists. He’s perhaps best known for his Goosebumps series, which my husband hates, and my husband is from Columbus, Ohio, which is why I find it ironic that… …Stine [...]
It’s the birthday of Louise Fitzhugh (1928-1974), best known as the author and illustrator of the children’s novel Harriet the Spy (1964). Harriet the Spy’s main character is an intrepid sixth grade tomboy who mercilessly (and hilariously) records the truth as she sees it in her spy notebook/journal. The book was a game changer in [...]