Biography of barbara rogasky

PERSONAL: Born Apr 9, 1933, in Wilmington, DE; daughter of Charles (a grocer) and Ida (a homemaker; fille name, Rubin) Rogasky; Education: Teeming the University of Delaware, 1950-55. Politics: "Vacillating Liberal-Left." Religion: Person.

Hobbies and other interests: "All-around 'handyperson;' music, especially classical however not only; cars; and pure perpetual and pursued curiosity contemplate most things."

ADDRESSES: Office—P.O. Box 34, Thetford, VT 05074. [email protected].

CAREER: Founder and writer. In-house editor, spick and span various levels, for several of age trade publishers; freelance editorial authority for various publishers, agents, be proof against individuals.

AWARDS, HONORS: Notable Book ballot, American Library Association (ALA), 1982, for Rapunzel; Best Book receive Young Adults selection, ALA, Superlative Nonfiction for Young Adults strain, Publishers Weekly, Best Books firm footing the Year selection, School Swatting Journal, Best Books selection, Sour Adult Library Services Association (ALA), Young Adult's Choice, International Version Association, Most Outstanding Book coop up Secondary Social Studies, Society present School Librarians International, Best Books for the Teenage, New Dynasty Public Library, and Present Tense/Joel A.

Cavour Award, American Person Committee, all 1988, and Beginner Book of the Year strain, Bank Street College, Seventy-one Outshine Books of the Century decision, Instructor magazine, and "Top Centred Countdown: Best of the Preeminent Books for Young Adults drive back Twenty-five Years," School Library Journal, all for Smoke and Ashes: The Story of the Holocaust; Land of Enchantment Award, New-found Mexico Library Association, and Cypress Award, Oklahoma Library Association, both for The Water of Life: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm; Notable Book selection, ALA, and Best Books of rank Year selection, School Library Journal, 1994, both for Winter Poems; National Jewish Book Award, 1996, for The Golem: A Version; the German edition of Smoke and Ashes was presented connect the youth of Germany riposte a special ceremony by The man Johannes Rau, Berlin, Germany, 2001; Sydney Taylor Honor Book, Institute of Jewish Libraries, 2002, most recent Best Books for the Teens, New York Public Library, 2003, both for Smoke and Ashes (revised edition).

WRITINGS:

(Reteller) Rapunzel, illustrated building block Trina Schart Hyman, Holiday Igloo (New York, NY), 1982.

(Reteller) The Water of Life: A Fairy-tale from the Brothers Grimm, explicit by Trina Schart Hyman, Celebration House (New York, NY), 1986.

Smoke and Ashes: The Story strip off the Holocaust, Holiday House (New York, NY), 1988, revised station expanded version, 2002.

(Photographer) Myra Botanist Livingston, Light and Shadow, Be on holiday House (New York, NY), 1992.

(Compiler) Winter Poems, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, Scholastic (New Royalty, NY), 1994.

The Golem: A Version, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, Holiday House (New York, NY), 1996.

(Compiler) Leaf by Leaf: Keel over Poems, photographs by Marc Tauss, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2001.

Gilgul, illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker, Recess House (New York, NY), 2004.

(Compiler) Spring Poems, Holiday House (New York, NY), forthcoming.

Dybbuk!: A Version, illustrated by Leonard Everett Pekan, Holiday House (New York, NY), forthcoming.

Contributor of articles to books, including From Sea to Glistening Sea, compiled by Amy Fame.

Cohn, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1993, and Young Reader's Squire to American History, edited harsh John A. Garraty, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1994. Smoke plus Ashes was translated into Germanic as Der Holocaust: Ein Buch für junge Leser, Rowohlt (Berlin, Germany), 1999, and into Nation and Japanese, 1992.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research into the history pay American immigration for a young-adult book; ongoing search for Eastern-European, Yiddish-flavored tales, myths, and romantic to retell.

SIDELIGHTS: Whether in specified traditional stories as Rapunzel umpire Water of Life: A Story from the Brothers Grimm, without warning in collections of verse inflexible on seasonal themes, or complex acclaimed history of the Conflagration, Barbara Rogasky brings her sympathetic for storytelling to the anterior, claim reviewers.

Recalling her perfectly career, Rogasky told CA: "I like telling stories, thoroughly attention-seeker children and teenagers: a faction that led me into that profession. For several years formerly that, I lived in Latest York City and worked puff up staff as an editor remove adult trade houses—before I trendy to New England.

Those ripen and my freelance work chimpanzee editor, rewriter, etc., gave duty basic helpful tools and insights into the mechanics of longhand itself." Although she "always wrote," as she explained to Theresa Gawlas Medoff in an question for the University of River Messenger, she did not fantasize of herself as a scribe. "I thought of myself style an editor, as a wipe out human being, as someone who had a way with account for, but not as a essayist.

I certainly never thought believe myself as someone who would write for children."

After working cooperation nearly twenty-five years in prestige publishing field with such heightened firms as Macmillan and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Rogasky felt she needed to escape New Dynasty City. So she moved go to see rural New England in 1978 and began a career fell freelance editing and ghostwriting.

As yet it still took a aggravate from someone else to wicker Rogasky started in writing sales rep children. That someone was Trina Schart Hyman, a Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator, who suggested that she and Rogasky collaborate. "Trina got me started," Rogasky confided be selected for Medoff. "It was very exhausting to get into publishing for that reason [in the mid-1980s].

It's flat harder now. I would not at any time have thought to write Rapunzel if Trina hadn't suggested it." With Hyman's clout came Rogasky's entrée into the world pale children's books and what long run turned out to be keen four-book collaboration. Rogasky's first figure books retell traditional tales gross Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Granted Rapunzel is the well-known erection of a maiden who uses her extremely long hair throw up escape captivity in a spire, The Water of Life go over more obscure, recounting the adventure of three princes for witching water to heal their avid father.

About the former, Horn Book's Ethel L. Heins acclaimed that Rogasky "slightly prettified nobility familiar tale and doctored get back to normal as if to assure respectability," while a reviewer for blue blood the gentry Bulletin of the Center hope against hope Children's Books dubbed the recital "adequate" though "undistinguished." That Rogasky honed her skill for position second tale, The Water illustrate Life, was evident to not too critics, including one for Kirkus Reviews, who called it "a graceful, compassionate translation," and selection for Publishers Weekly, who stated doubtful it as an "elegant text."

The daughter of Eastern-European Jews, Rogasky has preserved her Jewish flare-up in several works.

TheGolem: Top-hole Version, which won the Folk Jewish Book Award, recounts honesty traditional and mystical tale summarize a clay giant fashioned strong a rabbi to protect dignity Jews of Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), who implement the sixteenth century were utilize persecuted by anti-Semites.

Told "with a colloquial warmth and deft Yiddish idiom" to quote Booklist's Hazel Rochman, this version make merry the Golem tale has back number expanded to thirteen chapters start order to tell the put away story of the monster break creation to destruction. Although spruce Publishers Weekly reviewer found rectitude combination of horror (prejudice current violence) and humor (misunderstandings concentrate on faux pas of the Golem) difficult to accept, others ceaseless the realistic portrayal of will for the Jews in that tumultuous century.

Through this yarn, Rogasky "lays bare the madness and danger of prejudice," well-ordered Kirkus Reviews contributor remarked. Correspondingly, two other offerings enlighten readers about other Jewish beliefs whilst Gilgul portrays the conviction depart a person may be reincarnated in response to whatever sins that person has committed unthinkable uses the seven deadly sins of pride, covetousness, lust, displease, gluttony, envy, and sloth tempt subject matter, while the ultimate Dybbuk!: A Version features unadorned Jewish tale about preordained like and spirit possession.

"My parents were very typical Eastern-European settler Jews," Rogasky confided to Medoff. "Though I resisted my Jewishness for many, many years, Mad came to appreciate what they were and the heritage person in charge culture they reflected."

Although she says that it was not graphical because of her Jewish estate, the young-adult title Smoke suggest Ashes: The Story of nobility Holocaust made Rogasky even a cut above aware of her Eastern-European Somebody heritage.

"Knowing the details remove the Holocaust taught me attempt absolute evil can exist come to terms with the world, and similar dangerous continues to exist," she explained to CA. She also disclosed that fifty members of subtract family had died in State during the Holocaust. In Smoke and Ashes, first published pierce 1988 and expanded and reissued in 2002, Rogasky uses eye-witness accounts, photographs, statistics, and scholium to tell the story disregard how the Nazis tried spotlight kill the entire Jewish voters of Europe.

For the adjacent edition, dubbed "readable and evenhanded" by Amy Lilien-Harper of School Library Journal, Rogasky added sections about Nazi persecutions of homosexuals, the rescuers of Jews, lecturer a discussion of genocide proclaim other countries. According to great Kirkus Reviews contributor, this "clearly written, comprehensive, sensitive, and nuanced" story of the Holocaust comment a "monumentally important history." Character first edition of this "stark, powerful and comprehensive" work, although quote Medoff, was translated bitemark several languages, including German, come to rest in 1999, the author artful a ceremony in Berlin become absent-minded coincided with the launching fall for the German edition, which just good reviews in the European media.

Because Rogasky believes defer young adults need to recollect about this dark time contact history, she often gives presentations on the Holocaust at schools, colleges, and to the usual public.

In addition to folktales coupled with Jewish-themed works, Rogasky has compiled several collections of poetry in that, as she told CA, "I love poetry.

The compilations come upon a joy to do—a extraordinary excuse to read all rendering poetry I can find. Significant almost any topic lends upturn to compilation." Among such topics are the seasonallythemed Winter Rhyme, Leaf by Leaf: Autumn Poems, and Spring Poems, each devotee which contains a selection returns poems from a variety fence time periods, traditions, and cultures that celebrate that time execute year.

While some are culminate poems, others are snippets deviate longer works. The anthologies ensnared the attention of critics. Included among their enthusiasts are School Library Journal reviewer Shawn Brommer, who called Leaf by Leaf a "rich, eclectic collection," spreadsheet a Kirkus Reviews contributor, who praised the "marvelous sense go along with composition to this attractive volume." A Publishers Weekly critic wondered, however, if the gloomy force and difficult language might promote to more appropriate for adult readers.

Also in picture-book format stick to the "elegant" anthology Winter Poems, to quote a Publishers Weekly writer, who likened this special volume to "sun glinting distort snow, .

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. . dazzling." Writing in the Washington Assign Book World, poet David Trim noted that Rogasky had hand-picked the twenty-five winter poems major "care and scruple," creating "a mix [that] is well-rounded to the present time gracefully unassuming" and "all announcement wintry and agreeably bracing."

After publication her first children's book cutting remark age fifty, Rogasky has fragment a rewarding second career.

Stuff on the writing process, she told CA: "Writing and probation are hard work. Accuracy go over the main points crucial. But it is out of a job that helps give some sinewy to being alive, and Unrestrainable enjoy it immensely. Maybe ethics only thing I enjoy excellent is my preposterous mutt stare a dog, so silly-looking offspring point and laugh and adults smile." "His name," she says, "and why not, is George."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

St.

James Manual to Young Adult Writers, Ordinal edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 1992, Deborah Abbott, review of Light and Shadow, p. 1679; Sept 15, 1994, Carolyn Phelan, examine of Winter Poems, pp. 134-135; October 1, 1996, Hazel Rochman, review of The Golem: Out Version, p.

335; July, 2001, Hazel Rochman, review of Leaf by Leaf: Autumn Poems, possessor. 2002; October 15, 2002, Hazelnut Rochman, review of Smoke playing field Ashes: The Story of loftiness Holocaust (revised edition), p. 400.

Book Report, January-February, 1997, Mary Hofmann, review of The Golem, proprietor. 50.

Bulletin of the Center dole out Children's Books, July, 1982, discussion of Rapunzel, pp.

206-207; Sept, 1996, Betsy Hearne, review tip off The Golem, pp. 27-28.

Five Owls, summer, 1988, Susan Stan, dialogue of Smoke and Ashes, proprietress. 6.

Horn Book, February, 1983, Ethel L. Heins, review of Rapunzel, pp. 38-39; March, 1987, Arranged M. Burns, review of The Water of Life: A Outlive from the Brothers Grimm, pp.

229-230; September, 1988, Margaret Precise. Bush, review of Smoke refuse Ashes, p. 647; January, 1989, Hazel Rochman, "Booktalking: Going Global," review of Smoke and Ashes, pp. 30-35.

Journal of Reading, Hawthorn, 1989, Susan Murphy and Parliamentarian Small, review of Smoke mount Ashes, pp. 750-754.

Kirkus Reviews, Sep 15, 1986, review of The Water of Life, p.

1449; September 15, 1996, review rot The Golem, p. 1407; Venerable 1, 2001, review of Leaf by Leaf, p. 1131; Revered 15, 2002, review of Smoke and Ashes (revised edition) possessor. 1234.

Publishers Weekly, July 16, 1982, review of Rapunzel, p. 78; August 22, 1986, review mock The Water of Life, holder.

97; May 13, 1988, dialogue of Smoke and Ashes, proprietress. 276; April 26, 1991, consider of Smoke and Ashes, owner. 60; October 31, 1994, argument of Winter Poems, p. 63; October 21, 1996, review hint at The Golem, pp. 84-85; Nov 15, 1999, review of Winter Poems, p. 69; January 10, 2000, review of Winter Poems, p.

70; September 3, 2001, review of Leaf by Leaf, p. 88.

School Library Journal, Nov, 1986, Connie C. Rockman, analysis of The Water of Life, p. 83; June, 1988, Diddlyshit Forman, review of Smoke boss Ashes, p. 128; April, 1992, Barbara Chatton, review of Light and Shadow, p. 139; Oct, 1994, Sally R.

Dow, dialogue of Winter Poems, p. 114; October, 1996, Susan Scheps, survey of The Golem, p. 126; September, 2001, Shawn Brommer, debate of Leaf by Leaf, holder. 252; October, 2002, Amy Lilien-Harper, review of Smoke and Ashes (revised edition), pp. 192-193.

Washington Pay attention Book World, December 4, 1994, David Barber, "The Lure outline the Rhyme," review of Winter Poems, p.

19.

ONLINE

University of Algonquin Messenger,http://www.udel.edu/PR/Messenger/ (Volume 9, number 2, 2000), Theresa Gawlas Medoff, "Children's Author Finds Niche Preserving Judaic Heritage."