Happy 90th, Julian F. Thompson! (YA novelist: "A Band of Angels," 1986)

[leno...@yahoo.com]

He divides his time between West Rupert, Vermont, and Burlington,
Vermont.

" 'A Band of Angels' was named an American Library Association Best
Book in 1986."

His father (also named Julian F. Thompson) wrote the 1920s Broadway
play "The Warrior's Husband," an Amazonian comedy with sex-role
reversals. It was revived in 1932 and then starred......Katharine
Hepburn! (It was her first starring Broadway role.) Unfortunately,
when it was filmed in 1933, the cast did not include her (the only
actor's name I recognize is David Manners) and while there is a copy
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, you won't find the movie in
Netflix. A pity, since the two comments at the IMDb are quite positive
and the movie also warranted a mention in the book version of "The
Celluloid Closet" (they could get away with a lot of jaw-dropping
innuendo in 1933, since that was just before the Hayes Code was
enforced).

http://www.julianthompson.net/

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1041/Thompson-Julian-F-rancis-1927.html
(includes biographical details)

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&q=%22julian+f+thompson%22+&btnG=Search+Images
(some covers)

https://www.google.com/search?ei=i7gNWv3FAoevmQHj0ZmABA&q=julian+f+thompson+kirkus&oq=julian+f+thompson+kirkus&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160k1l2.2120.2785.0.2983.6.6.0.0.0.0.133.539.2j3.5.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.3.333...33i21k1.0.8eW6ZbJ-wGQ
(Kirkus reviews)

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/83500.Julian_F_Thompson
(reader reviews)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0yyq3kt2so
(about "The Grounding of Group 6")


In "Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults":

"I've never liked the term 'young adult,'" the author wrote in
Something about the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS). "I don't
believe I've ever met a kid who thought of herself as one. Even when a
kid says, 'Stop treating me like a kid' to someone, he usually just
means 'little kid'. . . . As far as I can tell, the term 'young adult'
was made up--or at least popularized--by book publishers who were
trying to convince eleven- and twelve-year-olds that they, the
publisher, didn't think of them (the kids) as 'children.'"

Thompson does not think of his readers as little children, either. His
books deal with such pertinent topics as nuclear war, environmental
problems, national politics, and--most important--teenagers' efforts
to become functioning, independent human beings. "As a rule," he told
SAAS, "the teenagers in my books sound like the kids I've known, and a
lot of my fictional characters are modeled, in part, on real people."

In "Authors and Artists for Young Adults":

In Julian F. Thompson's novels, the unexpected and unlikely are often
the norm. In his first novel, The Grounding of Group Six, five
students discover they have been sent to a special private school
where parents who no longer want their children can have them killed.
In Discontinued a high schooler searches for the men who killed his
mother and brother in an explosion. In Ghost Story a teenaged girl
stalked by a would-be pornographer is protected by a ghostly friend.
And in Hard Time, a high schooler's toy doll, used in her life skills
class, is inhabited by a leprechaun. "Thompson seems to be one of
those adults who listens to young people," commented Daniel J. Cox in
Writers for Young Adults. "His novels give them the chance to look at
how they feel and the (sometimes) outrageous things they think. His
books help readers see some possible answers to the questions they
just cannot seem to ask anyone but a best friend."...........

Many of Thomson's characters are based on young people he knew and
worked with as a school teacher........

"So when I started writing books, I decided I'd try to tell stories in
which kids, most kids, are presented positively, as they go through
the process of defining themselves and their beliefs. I'm still
grateful to the reviewer who said a book of mine combined 'romantic
realism' and 'surrealistic black humor'; indeed, I think they all do.
My protagonists tend to be idealists, but like almost all people their
age they have an interest in sex, sometimes use mild vulgarities when
talking to their friends, and often adopt, at least temporarily, anti-
establishment attitudes. They aren't dopes, and they don't talk or act
like dopes. I like to think my readers are as intelligent as they
are."

WRITINGS:

# The Grounding of Group Six, Avon (New York, NY), 1983.
# Facing It, Avon (New York, NY), 1983.
# A Question of Survival, Avon (New York, NY), 1984.
# Discontinued, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1985.
# A Band of Angels, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1986.
# Simon Pure, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1987.
# The Taking of Mariasburg, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1988.
# Goofbang Value Daze, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1989.


# Herb Seasoning, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1990.
# Gypsyworld, Holt (New York, NY), 1992.
# Shepherd, Holt (New York, NY), 1993.
# The Fling, Holt (New York, NY), 1994.
# The Trials of Molly Sheldon, Holt (New York, NY), 1995.
# Philo Fortune's Awesome Journey to His Comfort Zone, Hyperion (New
York, NY), 1995.
# Ghost Story, Holt (New York, NY), 1997.
# Brothers, Knopf (New York, NY), 1998.


# Terry and the Pirates, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2000.
# Hard Time, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2003.


Lenona.

[Lenona]

Turns out he died in January, 2018. (The ONLY source for this was his website!)

[Lenona]

He had four entries in the Something About the Author encyclopedias, plus an entry in vol. 24 of the Children's Literature Review encyclopedias.