R.I.P. Mary Alexander Walker, 81, in Aug. 2009 (YA novelist: "The Year of the Cafeteria," 1971)
Lenona
http://special.registerguard.com/turin/2009/sep/24/obituaries/
(It claims she was known as Mary Helen Walker, but there's clearly at
least one mistake in the notice - her father's name was not Walker!)
Excerpt:
"She graduated from French High School in Beaumont (Texas) and
received a bachelor’s degree from Texas Women’s University and a
master’s degree from San Francisco State University. She taught
writing at Dominican University in San Rafael, Calif., and at the
University of San Francisco, and was the author of six 'young adult'
novels."
(snip)
She was nominated for the 1972 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award for "The
Year of the Cafeteria."
She said:
"Coming from a background in more than one of the arts, I do not
strive to write naturalistically, but rather to present an art form,
composing and selecting. I work with ideas about which I feel
passionately or with craft problems that challenge me greatly, or
sometimes both. My novel Maggot is about a young dancer, developed
from a line I read in the autobiography of Martha Graham: `The body
does not lie.' The greatest challenge to me in craft is using a verbal
art to grasp the essence of a non-verbal art."
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
* The Year of the Cafeteria, Bobbs-Merrill, 1971, reprinted as
Bread and Roses, Grosset, 1972.
("Azure has a Creole lilt to her voice, yes, and she has a
grandmother. Yes, a grandmother who can turn an ordinary senior year
into a story and a half. Why, well because, ""For an old lady past
sixty-five, she had a lot of faith in beginnings"" and because she
knows her mind. She knows her history and she knows her cooking (she
has a diploma from the Cordon Bleu -- Abby Markham, 1923), and she
knows the answers to everything. . . before Azure or anyone else even
knows the question. Azure's no pushover either, however, and she's
quite the perfect foil for Gran, who runs the high-school cafeteria
with the gentlest of iron hands: she fires Azure -- unconditionally --
from her part-time amanuensis job; then she rehires Azure (which is
something different, yes), on the condition (Gran always has
conditions) that she try out for the part of Queen Elizabeth. All the
world's a stage but this time a particular play is the thing, and if
Gran rose any higher to the occasion she'd hit the ceiling: ""a
director is born"" and she has the keenest, warmest self around -- ")
(I had to snip, due to a spoiler)
* To Catch a Zombi, Atheneum, 1979.
("In 1784 a young black boy, disgusted by his mother's dependence on
the local voodoo priest, leaves the Louisiana swamps where they live
and goes to New Orleans where he eventually gains the knowledge to
help improve his life and that of his people. ")
* Maggot, Atheneum, 1980.
("Sometimes people who are unlikely to meet in the normal course of
their lives do meet; and because they do, their lives are never quite
the same again. That was the way it was with Maggot and Elephant and
Josh. They were three very different people and their meeting was
unexpected and a turning point for all three. Maggot cared only for
dancing. Dancing was her entire life. Ballet, modern dance -any kind
of dance. Her body could move in any way she willed it to move; and
her mind could create patterns of dance to fit any occasion. Elephant
cared only for her sister, Ruthie May. Ruthie May had great ambitions,
and Elephant was determined that they should be fulfilled, no matter
what she, Elephant, had to do to make them happen. Josh, too, had his
dreams. He worked nights and some weekends at an animal shelter, had a
way with people, loved children, and wanted something he could not
quite define. The three apart were alone, each seeking a future they
could not quite reach. Together they goaded each other into action.
Yet even as each had been alone before, so the three together existed
as an entity alone, torn from the time and place of San Francisco in
the early 1970's, moving in a special time and place that belonged to
them alone, and maybe to Ruthie May. Eventually the world had to
impinge on what they had created for themselves, but not before each
had come to some concrete realization of self. ")
* Brad's Box, Atheneum, 1988.
("The high school boy who arrives to spend a year as a boarder with
fourteen-year-old Rose's Iowa farm family ultimately becomes part of
that family, changing Rose's life and blooming into a maturity that
wipes out his past.")
* The Scathach and Maeve's Daughters, Macmillan, 1990.
("In the eighth century, Scathach, the ancient shape-shifting female
champion, appears to Maeve Moira, the daughter of a Celtic High King,
and, pleased with her character, promises that her daughters--and the
daughters of their daughters--will survive and possess Maeve's
qualities. ")
OTHER
* (With Peggy Ford) "Ozma and the Nome King's Palace" (musical
play for children; adaptation), first produced in San Leandro, CA, at
Lilliput Theatre, 1982.
Lenona.