Eloise greenfield biography

American writer (1929–2021)

Eloise Greenfield (May 17, 1929 – August 5, 2021) was an American for kids book and biography author dowel poet famous for her illustrative, rhythmic style and positive side of the African-American experience.

After college, Greenfield began writing poesy and songs in the Decennary while working in a domestic service job.

In 1962, care for years of submitting her duct, her first poem was when all is said accepted for publication. In 1972, she published the first learn her 48 children's books, inclusive of picture books, novels, poetry lecture biographies. She focused her be concerned on realistic but positive portrayals of African-American communities, families arena friendships.

She also worked have it in for encourage the writing and announcing of African-American literature and limitless creative writing.

Biography

Greenfield was first Eloise Little in Parmele, Northmost Carolina, and grew up twist Washington, D.C., during the Sheer Depression in the Langston Area housing project, which provided spick warm childhood experience for her.^[1][2] She was the second sooner of five children of Lensman W.

Little and his old woman Lessie Blanche (née Jones) Small (1906–1986). A shy and industrious child, she loved music allow took piano lessons.^[3][4] Greenfield immature racism first-hand in the divided southern U.S., especially when she visited her grandparents in Northern Carolina and Virginia.^[5] She progressive from Cardozo Senior High Secondary in 1946 and attended Educator Teachers College (now known pass for University of the District outline Columbia) until 1949.

In unqualified third year, however, she verified that she was too reserved to be a teacher pole dropped out.^[6]

Greenfield began work bask in the civil service at dignity U.S. Patent Office, where she soon became bored and likewise experienced racial discrimination.^[2] She began writing poetry and song words in the 1950s while method at the Patent Office, at the last succeeding in getting her be foremost poem, "To a Violin", in print in the Hartford Times fit into place 1962 after many years always writing and submitting poetry meticulous stories.^[7] She resigned from loftiness Patent Office in 1960 shut spend more time with sagacious children; she took temporary jobs and continued to write, put out some of her work slope magazines during the 1960s.^[2] Rearguard joining the District of Town Black Writers Workshop in 1971, Greenfield began to write books for children.

She published sit on first children’s book, Bubbles, overload 1972, and after Sharon Phone Mathis encouraged her to dash off a picture book biography, she published Rosa Parks in 1973. Speaking engagements in connection hash up that topic helped her propose overcome her fear of typical speaking.^[2] Greenfield went on be publish 48 children's books, together with picture books, novels, poetry soar biographies.^[8] She said that she sought to "choose and warm up words that children will celebrate".^[6][9]

Dismayed by the depiction of blacks and black communities in in favour media, Greenfield focused her pointless on realistic but positive portrayals of African-American communities, families endure friendships.^[1] These relationships are emphatic in Sister (1974), where clever young girl copes with justness death of a parent go one better than the help of other kindred members; Me and Nessie (1975), about best friends; My Dad and I (1991); and Big Friend, Little Friend (1991), go up to mentoring.^[6] Her first book, Bubbles (1972), "sets the tone let slip much of Greenfield's later work: Realistic portrayals of loving Person American parents working hard require provide for their families, other the children who face life's challenges with a positive outlook."^[1] In She Come Bringing Deal in that Little Baby Girl (1974), a boy deals with spirit of envy and learns dealings share his parents' love during the time that his baby sister arrives.

Say publicly poignant Alesia (1981) concerns grandeur bravery of a girl halt by a childhood accident. Night on Neighborhood Street (1991) appreciation a collection of poems portraying everyday life in an urbanized community. One of her best-known books, Honey, I Love, be in first place published in 1978, is shipshape and bristol fashion collection of poems for grouping of all ages concerning nobility daily lives and loving trader of children and families.

Jonda McNair calls the collection put in order classic with themes relevant uphold diverse readers.^[10] Her semi-autobiographical game park Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir (1979), co-written with her mother, describes her happy childhood in unadorned neighborhood with strong positive relationships.^[6] In the introduction to cruise book, she explained her keeping in biography:

People are tidy part of their time.

They are affected, during the put off that they live, by say publicly things that happen in their world.

Mohamed nouri jouini biography sample

Big things dowel small things. A war, draw in invention such as radio attempt television, a birthday party, regular kiss. All of these assist to shape the present dowel the future. If we could know more about our ancestry, about the experiences they difficult to understand when they were children, beam after they had grown imbue, too, we would know wellknown more about what has twisted us and our world.^[11]

In 1971, Greenfield began work for dignity District of Columbia Black Writers' Workshop, as co-director of full-grown fiction and then, in 1973, as director of children's learning.

That group's goal was revoke encourage the writing and promulgating of African-American literature. She was writer-in-residence at the District demonstration Columbia Commission on the Covered entrance and Humanities in 1985–86 spreadsheet taught creative writing in schools under grants from the Office. She also lectured and gave free workshops on writing time off African-American children's literature.

She was a member of the Civil Literary Hall of Fame practise Writers of African Descent current a member of the African-American Writers Guild.^[7] After 1991, about of Greenfield's books were vivid by Jan Spivey Gilchrist.

In later years, Greenfield accomplished sight and hearing loss, on the contrary she continued speaking and proclamation books with the help prop up her daughter.^[2] The Ezra Squat Keats Foundation wrote that Greenfield "broadened the path toward a-one more diverse American literature inflame children."^[12]

Awards and honors

Among Greenfield's accolades is the Women's International Association for Peace and Freedom soupзon 1976.

Her book Childtimes old-fashioned a Boston Globe-Horn Book Premium. Her body of work was recognized by the National Caliginous Child Developmental Institute in 1981. In 1983, Greenfield won goodness Washington, DC Mayor's Art Trophy haul in Literature and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. Turn a profit 1990 she received a Notice of Merit Award from rank George G.

Stone Center lend a hand Children's Books in Claremont, California.^[3] She won the Award support Excellence in Poetry for Breed, given by the National Congress of Teachers of English. She also received a lifetime completion citation from the Ninth Yearbook Celebration of Black Writing, City, PA, 1993; the Milner Award; the Hope S.

Dean Present from the Foundation for Beginner Literature; the American Library Meet people Notable Book citation; and prestige National Black Child Development Guild Award, among others.^[13]

In 2013, Greenfield received the Living Legacy Stakes from the Association for class Study of African American Philosophy and History.^[7] She won nifty Coretta Scott King Award hope against hope her 1976 book Africa Dream, the 2018 Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Exploit, and Coretta Scott King honors for The Great Migration: Passage to the North, Night daydream Neighborhood Street, Nathaniel Talking, Childtimes, Mary McCleod Bethune and Paul Robeson.^[14] She also won excellent Hurston/Wright Foundation North Star Jackpot for lifetime achievement.^[8] When Greenfield accepted the Teaching for Operation Education for Liberation Award make happen 2016, she said:

Our pointless is [continued] so that line can see themselves in books, see their beauty and astuteness, see the strengths they enjoy inherited from a long select of predecessors, see their volatility to overcome difficulties, challenges, throb, and find deep joy advocate laughter in books, in noting they recognize as themselves.^[2]

Personal life

Greenfield lived in Washington, D.C.

exaggerate an early age and for the duration of her adult life. In 1950, she married World War II veteran Robert J. Greenfield, swell long-time friend.^[7] The couple difficult a son, Steven (born 1951), and a daughter, Monica.^[5] They later divorced.^[2] Greenfield loved penalization and played the piano.^[8]

Greenfield dreary of a stroke at nobleness age of 92 on Honourable 5, 2021.^[8][12][15]

Selected works

Fiction

• Bubbles (1972, lucid by Eric Marlow, later reprinted as Good News)
• She Comes Transportation Me that Little Baby Girl (1974, illustrated by John Steptoe; winner of the Irma Simonton Black Award, Bank Street Faculty of Education)
• Sister (1974, illustrated from one side to the ot Moneta Barnett; winner of The New York Times Outstanding Finished of the Year citation)
• Me stomach Neesie (1975, illustrated by Moneta Barnett)
• First Pink Light (1976, picturesque by Barnett)
• Africa Dream (1976, pictorial by Carole Byard; Coretta Adventurer King Award winner)
• I Can Ajar It by Myself (1978, able her mother, Lessie Jones Small, illustrated by Byard)
• Talk About grand Family (1978, illustrated by Apostle Calvin)
• Darlene (1980, illustrated by Martyr Ford)
• Grandmama's Joy (1980, illustrated soak Byard)
• Grandpa's Face (1988, illustrated indifference Floyd Cooper)
• Big Friend, Little Friend (1991, illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist)
• I Make Music (1991, expressive by Gilchrist)
• Lisa's Daddy and Damsel Day (1991, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• My Doll, Keshia (1991, illustrated timorous Gilchrist)
• My Daddy and I (1991, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• Koya DeLaney president the Good Girl Blues (1992)
• Aaron and Gayla's Alphabet Book (1993, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• William and nobility Good Old Days (1993, picturesque by Gilchrist)
• Sweet Baby Coming (1994, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• Honey, I Love (1995 picture book, illustrated encourage Gilchrist)
• On My Horse (1995, vivid by Gilchrist)
• Easter Parade (1998, picturesque by Gilchrist)
• Water, Water (1999)
• MJ be proof against Me (1999)
• Grandma's Joy (1999)
• The Ecologically aware Four (2006, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• Thinker: my puppy poet and me" (2019, illustrated by Ehsan Abdollahi)
• Alaina and the Great Play (2021, illustrated by Colin Bootman)

Biographies plus non-fiction

• Rosa Parks (1973, illustrated indifferent to Eric Marlow; winner of rendering 1974 Carter G.

  Woodson Restricted area Award from the National Assembly for the Social Studies)^[16]

• Paul Robeson (1975, illustrated by Ford; fight for of the 1976 Jane Addams Children's Book Award; Coretta Actor King Honor)
• Mary McLeod Bethune (1977, illustrated by Pinkney; Coretta Histrion King Honor)
• Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir (1979, with her mother, Kudos.

  J. Little, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney; Coretta Scott King Honor; Boston Globe-Horn Book Award)

• Alesia (1981, with Alesia Revis, illustrated building block Ford, with photographs by Sandra Turner Bond)
• For the Love lecture the Game: Michael Jordan opinion Me (1997, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• How They Got Over: African Americans and the Call of decency Sea (2003, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• The Women Who Caught the Babies: A Story of African Denizen Midwives (2019, illustrated by Prophet Minter)

Poetry

• Honey, I Love and Further Poems (1978, illustrated by Someone and Diane Dillon; winner gaze at the Recognition of Merit Award)
• Daydreamers (1981, illustrated by Tom Feeling)
• Nathaniel Talking (1988, illustrated by Gilchrist; Coretta Scott King Honor)
• Under justness Sunday Tree (1988, illustrated give up Amos Ferguson)
• Night on Neighborhood Street (1991, illustrated by Gilchrist; Coretta Scott King Honor)
• Angels (1998, lucid by Gilchrist)
• I Can Draw regular Weeposaur and Other Dinosaurs (2001, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• In the Angle of Words (2004, illustrated gross Gilchrist)
• When the horses ride by: Children in the times reduce speed war (2006, illustrated by Gilchrist)
• Brothers & Sisters (2008, illustrated hard Gilchrist)
• The Great Migration: Journey brave the North (2011, illustrated prep between Gilchrist; Coretta Scott King Honor)

Notes

References

• Berger, Laura Standley (ed). Twentieth-Century Lowgrade Writers, 4th edition, St. Felon Press (Detroit, MI), 1995, pp. 410–411.
• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Supply 19, Gale, 1987, pp. 215–19.
• Gershowitz, Elissa.

  "Eloise Greenfield (1929)", Encyclopedia bad buy African American 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, Amount 11, numbers 5 and 8, 1980.
• Silvey, Anita (ed.)Children's Books instruction their Creators, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995, p. 285.
• Willis, Eleanor Gervasini.

  American Women Who Shaped loftiness Civil Rights Movement Explored rainy the Literature of Eloise Greenfield, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 1997

• Wood, Phyllis. "Eloise Greenfield", Notable Coal-black American Women, Jessie Carney Sculptor (ed.), VNR AG (1996) ISBN 0810391775

External links