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Charlotte Pomerantz, 92, children's writer and journalist
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Michael Rhodes
Jul 31, 2022, 3:54:33 PM7/31/22
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Charlotte Pomerantz. who died July 24, 2022, on her 92nd birthday, at Charlottesville, Virginia, was an American children's writer and journalist.
Her 1975 story The Princess and the Admiral won a Jane Addams Children's Book Award. Pomerantz's story The Piggy in the Puddle appeared on Reading Rainbow in 1992.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/books/charlotte-pomerantz-dead.html
Her 1975 story The Princess and the Admiral won a Jane Addams Children's Book Award. Pomerantz's story The Piggy in the Puddle appeared on Reading Rainbow in 1992.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/books/charlotte-pomerantz-dead.html
Lenona
Aug 1, 2022, 11:11:10 AM8/1/22
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Thanks. I spotted it yesterday in the paper, but I was in a rush.
From the Jane Addams Peace Association website: "The Jane Addams Children's Book Award annually recognizes children's books of literary and aesthetic excellence that effectively engage children in thinking about peace, social justice, global community, and equity for all people."
Excerpts from the NYT obit:
...(The Piggy in the Puddle), used in countless library story times ever since, was a rebel’s tale: Not only did its young heroine refuse to come out of the puddle or use soap, but by its end her family had also seen the beauty of muddiness and joined her in the ooze.
Ms. Pomerantz knew something about nonconformity: She was married to Carl Marzani, who in the early days of cold-war witch hunting had gone to prison for not revealing a past Communist Party connection to government loyalty examiners. Before she started writing children’s books, she worked at a leftist publishing house he had helped found, where her projects included editing a book of essays called “A Quarter-Century of Un-Americana, 1938-1963: A Tragico-Comical Memorabilia of HUAC,” referring to the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee.
Her children’s books sometimes had one social or political cause or another woven into them. “The Day They Parachuted Cats on Borneo” (1971, illustrated by Jose Aruego) told the true story of the ecological aftermath of DDT spraying — in verse. “Mangaboom” (1997, illustrated by Anita Lobel) was about a boy who meets a 19-foot-tall woman with a mind of her own.
...In 1978 Ms. Pomerantz wrote a whimsical article for The New York Times in which she envisioned how a modern-day book publisher might respond to a submission from Mother Goose.
“The humorous touches are fun,” the editor’s “Dear Ms. Goose” letter went, “yet there is a fine line between the silly and the senseless, the fanciful and the outrageous — in short, between nonsense and rubbish.”
It went on to criticize Ms. Goose’s rhymes and other choices. (“Bo-Peep seems a rather far-fetched name for a child to identify with. How about Jennifer or Amy?”) As for “Little Miss Muffet,” the letter advised that no child would know what “curds” means and suggested substituting “frozen yogurt.”
“Also,” the letter advised, “spiders don’t sit; they dangle.”
(end)
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.books.childrens/c/CIbY2d5JkZk/m/9deaB2vNCAAJ
(long birthday post from 2020, booklist, radio and video interviews - thankfully, all the links still work)
Excerpts:
From Contemporary Authors:
(Pomerantz) once commented on the development of her writing skills:
"When I was nine, I wrote a children's story about a trio named Tommy,
Lulu, and Dee Dee Dum Dum. Fortunately, it has been lost." After
writing for her high school newspaper and contributing stories to a
literary magazine at Sarah Lawrence College, Pomerantz said she "wrote
a long children's story about the hierarchy of personnel in a zoo that
roughly paralleled Stern's department store, where I worked as a
salesperson. Some years later, a friend suggested I submit it to a
publisher and, after drastic cutting, it was published. This
encouraged me to write and submit other stories for children. It never
occurred to me to submit stories prior to this, and I still think one
should write for a long time for the pleasurable pain of it before
worrying about publication."
(end)
About "The Princess and the Admiral":
"When a fleet of warships attacks the Tiny Kingdom, a clever young
princess uses ingenuity to preserve her kingdom's one hundred years of
peace. Based on a thirteenth-century incident involving Kublai Khan
and Vietnam."
http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&biw=1024&bih=576&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=%22charlotte+pomerantz%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
(book covers and photos)
http://charlottepomerantz.com
(her site - it includes a few of her poems)
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/author/charlotte-pomerantz/
(eight Kirkus reviews)
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/86432.Charlotte_Pomerantz
(reader reviews)
And there are many read-alouds of her books on YouTube.
https://www.upsmag.com/charlotte-pomerantz-inventive-childrens-book-author-dies-at-92/
(short obit)
From the Jane Addams Peace Association website: "The Jane Addams Children's Book Award annually recognizes children's books of literary and aesthetic excellence that effectively engage children in thinking about peace, social justice, global community, and equity for all people."
Excerpts from the NYT obit:
...(The Piggy in the Puddle), used in countless library story times ever since, was a rebel’s tale: Not only did its young heroine refuse to come out of the puddle or use soap, but by its end her family had also seen the beauty of muddiness and joined her in the ooze.
Ms. Pomerantz knew something about nonconformity: She was married to Carl Marzani, who in the early days of cold-war witch hunting had gone to prison for not revealing a past Communist Party connection to government loyalty examiners. Before she started writing children’s books, she worked at a leftist publishing house he had helped found, where her projects included editing a book of essays called “A Quarter-Century of Un-Americana, 1938-1963: A Tragico-Comical Memorabilia of HUAC,” referring to the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee.
Her children’s books sometimes had one social or political cause or another woven into them. “The Day They Parachuted Cats on Borneo” (1971, illustrated by Jose Aruego) told the true story of the ecological aftermath of DDT spraying — in verse. “Mangaboom” (1997, illustrated by Anita Lobel) was about a boy who meets a 19-foot-tall woman with a mind of her own.
...In 1978 Ms. Pomerantz wrote a whimsical article for The New York Times in which she envisioned how a modern-day book publisher might respond to a submission from Mother Goose.
“The humorous touches are fun,” the editor’s “Dear Ms. Goose” letter went, “yet there is a fine line between the silly and the senseless, the fanciful and the outrageous — in short, between nonsense and rubbish.”
It went on to criticize Ms. Goose’s rhymes and other choices. (“Bo-Peep seems a rather far-fetched name for a child to identify with. How about Jennifer or Amy?”) As for “Little Miss Muffet,” the letter advised that no child would know what “curds” means and suggested substituting “frozen yogurt.”
“Also,” the letter advised, “spiders don’t sit; they dangle.”
(end)
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.books.childrens/c/CIbY2d5JkZk/m/9deaB2vNCAAJ
(long birthday post from 2020, booklist, radio and video interviews - thankfully, all the links still work)
Excerpts:
From Contemporary Authors:
(Pomerantz) once commented on the development of her writing skills:
"When I was nine, I wrote a children's story about a trio named Tommy,
Lulu, and Dee Dee Dum Dum. Fortunately, it has been lost." After
writing for her high school newspaper and contributing stories to a
literary magazine at Sarah Lawrence College, Pomerantz said she "wrote
a long children's story about the hierarchy of personnel in a zoo that
roughly paralleled Stern's department store, where I worked as a
salesperson. Some years later, a friend suggested I submit it to a
publisher and, after drastic cutting, it was published. This
encouraged me to write and submit other stories for children. It never
occurred to me to submit stories prior to this, and I still think one
should write for a long time for the pleasurable pain of it before
worrying about publication."
(end)
About "The Princess and the Admiral":
"When a fleet of warships attacks the Tiny Kingdom, a clever young
princess uses ingenuity to preserve her kingdom's one hundred years of
peace. Based on a thirteenth-century incident involving Kublai Khan
and Vietnam."
http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&biw=1024&bih=576&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=%22charlotte+pomerantz%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
(book covers and photos)
http://charlottepomerantz.com
(her site - it includes a few of her poems)
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/author/charlotte-pomerantz/
(eight Kirkus reviews)
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/86432.Charlotte_Pomerantz
(reader reviews)
And there are many read-alouds of her books on YouTube.
https://www.upsmag.com/charlotte-pomerantz-inventive-childrens-book-author-dies-at-92/
(short obit)
Lenona
Aug 1, 2022, 11:13:57 AM8/1/22
to
> ...In 1978 Ms. Pomerantz wrote a whimsical article for The New York Times in which she envisioned how a modern-day book publisher might respond to a submission from Mother Goose.
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/04/30/archives/little-jennifer-has-lost-her-sheep-sheep.html
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