Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
Happy 80th, Mary Ellen Ellsworth! (Gertrude Chandler Warner and the Boxcar Children, 1997)
0 views
Skip to first unread message
leno...@yahoo.com
Aug 13, 2020, 11:27:06 AM8/13/20
to
Born in Chicago, she got her degrees at Smith and Columbia, became an educator, and now lives in Eastford, Connecticut.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/ellsworth-mary-ellen-tressel-1940
(resume, with a long autobiographical piece)
Excerpt:
"I was asked by a colleague to give a presentation on a local author as part of the 300th anniversary celebration for Windam County in Connecticut, where I live. I soon found that the area author who seemed to have the greatest readership was Gertrude Chandler Warner, who had written nineteen volumes of the 'Boxcar Children' mystery series for children. Even though I don't think it was quite what the university expected, I gave my paper on Warner, and it seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed by all the colloquium participants. One participant, the president of Putnam's Aspinock Historical Society, asked me to give a talk on Warner at his group's spring meeting the following year. That meeting was a lot of fun; local residents and former Warner students came, bringing anecdotes and mementos, and we videotaped the evening. Then I put my Warner materials away as I went on with my teaching and other writing projects. Many months later, on a cold fall afternoon, I received a call from a college administrator in Florida, whom I did not know. She said that she had grown up in Putnam and had Miss Warner as her teacher. Her mother had sent her the videotape of the Putnam evening for her birthday. Coincidentally, at a recent booksellers' meeting, a representative of the Albert Whitman Company, Warner's publisher, had mentioned to her that they were looking for someone to write Warner's biography. She was sure I was the one to do it! So I prepared a manuscript and gave it a trial-run on the second-graders in our local elementary school..."
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-ellen-ellsworth-898a526a
Excerpt:
Dr. Ellsworth has been a Yale Visiting Faculty Fellow, and a Connecticut Humanities Council Grant Recipient for “The American Family,” “Images of Women in Art and Literature,” and “Women’s Voices from American Literature.” She has presented lectures and papers on such authors as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ann Petry, and Mark Twain.
https://www.boxcarchildren.com/author/mary-ellen-ellsworth/
(book cover)
WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:
Gertrude Chandler Warner and the Boxcar Children, illustrated by Marie DeJohn, A. Whitman Co. (Morton Grove, IL), 1997.
A History of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1799-1999, Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences (New Haven, CT), 1999.
Lenona.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/ellsworth-mary-ellen-tressel-1940
(resume, with a long autobiographical piece)
Excerpt:
"I was asked by a colleague to give a presentation on a local author as part of the 300th anniversary celebration for Windam County in Connecticut, where I live. I soon found that the area author who seemed to have the greatest readership was Gertrude Chandler Warner, who had written nineteen volumes of the 'Boxcar Children' mystery series for children. Even though I don't think it was quite what the university expected, I gave my paper on Warner, and it seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed by all the colloquium participants. One participant, the president of Putnam's Aspinock Historical Society, asked me to give a talk on Warner at his group's spring meeting the following year. That meeting was a lot of fun; local residents and former Warner students came, bringing anecdotes and mementos, and we videotaped the evening. Then I put my Warner materials away as I went on with my teaching and other writing projects. Many months later, on a cold fall afternoon, I received a call from a college administrator in Florida, whom I did not know. She said that she had grown up in Putnam and had Miss Warner as her teacher. Her mother had sent her the videotape of the Putnam evening for her birthday. Coincidentally, at a recent booksellers' meeting, a representative of the Albert Whitman Company, Warner's publisher, had mentioned to her that they were looking for someone to write Warner's biography. She was sure I was the one to do it! So I prepared a manuscript and gave it a trial-run on the second-graders in our local elementary school..."
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-ellen-ellsworth-898a526a
Excerpt:
Dr. Ellsworth has been a Yale Visiting Faculty Fellow, and a Connecticut Humanities Council Grant Recipient for “The American Family,” “Images of Women in Art and Literature,” and “Women’s Voices from American Literature.” She has presented lectures and papers on such authors as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ann Petry, and Mark Twain.
https://www.boxcarchildren.com/author/mary-ellen-ellsworth/
(book cover)
WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:
Gertrude Chandler Warner and the Boxcar Children, illustrated by Marie DeJohn, A. Whitman Co. (Morton Grove, IL), 1997.
A History of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1799-1999, Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences (New Haven, CT), 1999.
Lenona.
leno...@yahoo.com
Aug 13, 2020, 11:32:51 AM8/13/20
to
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mary-ellen-ellsworth/gertrude-chandler-warner-and-the-boxcar-children/
(Kirkus review)
https://bookpage.com/reviews/5920-diane-blain-boxcar-children-roll-cooking#.XzVcHOv3aK0
First half:
Four adventurous orphans take up residence in a boxcar and begin to solve mysteries -- this is the premise of the beloved Boxcar Children series, begun in 1942 by Gertrude Chandler Warner and still going strong. Warner enjoyed pointing out that her first book, The Boxcar Children (Whitman, $3.95, grades 3-8), “raised a storm of protest from librarians who thought the children were having too good a time without any parental control! That is exactly why children like it!”
Today’s young readers continue to seek out Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden and their dog, Watch, whose exciting exploits are described in easy-to-read chapters. Their creator was born in 1890 and lived across the street from a train station in Putnam, Connecticut, as Mary Ellen Ellsworth explains in a new biography, Gertrude Chandler Warner and the Boxcar Children. The resulting soot and cinders meant that the family had to dust the windowsills twice each day.
Although Warner was spirited and full of fun, poor health prevented her from finishing high school. During World War I, a shortage of teachers prompted the local school board to hire her to teach first grade, a position she held for over 30 years. She wrote the first Boxcar book while home recuperating from an illness, thinking back to her childhood glimpses inside a caboose, where the sight of a small stove, table, and dishes led her to imagine what it would be like to live on a train...
(Kirkus review)
https://bookpage.com/reviews/5920-diane-blain-boxcar-children-roll-cooking#.XzVcHOv3aK0
First half:
Four adventurous orphans take up residence in a boxcar and begin to solve mysteries -- this is the premise of the beloved Boxcar Children series, begun in 1942 by Gertrude Chandler Warner and still going strong. Warner enjoyed pointing out that her first book, The Boxcar Children (Whitman, $3.95, grades 3-8), “raised a storm of protest from librarians who thought the children were having too good a time without any parental control! That is exactly why children like it!”
Today’s young readers continue to seek out Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden and their dog, Watch, whose exciting exploits are described in easy-to-read chapters. Their creator was born in 1890 and lived across the street from a train station in Putnam, Connecticut, as Mary Ellen Ellsworth explains in a new biography, Gertrude Chandler Warner and the Boxcar Children. The resulting soot and cinders meant that the family had to dust the windowsills twice each day.
Although Warner was spirited and full of fun, poor health prevented her from finishing high school. During World War I, a shortage of teachers prompted the local school board to hire her to teach first grade, a position she held for over 30 years. She wrote the first Boxcar book while home recuperating from an illness, thinking back to her childhood glimpses inside a caboose, where the sight of a small stove, table, and dishes led her to imagine what it would be like to live on a train...
0 new messages