Edith Thacher Hurd (September 14, 1910 – January 25, 1997) was an American writer of children's books. She published 70 books in her lifetime,Saxon, Wolfgang

''The New York Times'' (July 25, 1997). fifty of them illustrated by her husband, Clement Hurd.

Biography

Edith Thacher was born in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

in 1910 to John Hamilton Thacher and Edith Gilman Thacher. She had one older brother, John Jr., and one younger brother,

Nicholas Nicholas is a male given name and a surname. The Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Anglicanism, Anglican Churches celebrate Saint Nicholas every year on December 6, which is the name day for "Nicholas". In Greece, the n ...

, who served as the

United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia The United States recognized the government of King Ibn Saud in 1931, but it was not until 1939 when it appointed its first U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Bert Fish, then resident in Cairo and ambassador to Egypt. Fish made one trip down to Jed ...

from 1970 to 1973. She attended Radcliffe College and the

Bank Street College of Education Bank Street College of Education is a private school and graduate school in New York City. It consists of a graduate-only teacher training college and an independent nursery-through-8th-grade school. In 2020 the graduate school had about 65 full ...

, where she first met Clement Hurd and Margaret Wise Brown. She taught for four years at New York's

Dalton School The Dalton School, originally the Children's University School, is a private, coeducational college preparatory school in New York City and a member of both the Ivy Preparatory School League and the New York Interschool. The school is located ...

, and during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

worked as a news analyst at the

United States Office of War Information The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...

in San Francisco. Thacher and Hurd married in 1939, collaborated on over fifty books, and had a son, John

Thacher Hurd John Thacher Hurd (born March 6, 1949) is an American artist and the creator of children's picture books including ''Mama Don't Allow'' and ''Art Dog''. Biography Thacher Hurd was born in Burlington, Vermont, the son of children's book creato ...

. Hurd also co-wrote with Brown, under the pseudonym "Juniper Sage." She died on January 25, 1997 in

Walnut Creek, California Walnut Creek is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, about east of the city of Oakland. With a total population of 70,127 per the 2020 census, Walnut Creek s ...

, aged 86. Hurd's work, as well as that of her husband and son, was featured at several museums in the traveling exhibition "From ''Goodnight Moon'' to ''Art Dog'': The World of Clement, Edith and Thacher Hurd."

Selected works

* ''Hurry Hurry'' illus. Mary Pepperrell Dana (W. R. Scott, 1938) * ''The Wreck of the Wild Wave: Being the True Account of the Wreck of the Clipper Ship Wild Wave of Boston'' illus. Josiah Nickerson Knowles (Oxford University Press, 1942) * ''Jerry the Jeep'' illus. Theodore Friday (Lothrop, 1945) * ''The Galleon from Manila'' (Oxford University Press, 1949) * ''Mr. Shortsleeves' Great Big Store'' illus. Bernice Myers (Simon & Schuster, 1952) * ''The Golden Hind'', illus.

Leonard Everett Fisher Leonard Everett Fisher (born June 24, 1924) is an American artist best known for illustrating children's books. Since 1955 he has illustrated about 250 books for younger readers including about 88 that he also wrote. Fisher was born in the Bronx ...

(Crowell, 1960) * ''Sandpipers'' illus.

Lucienne Bloch Lucienne Bloch (January 5, 1909 – March 13, 1999) was a Switzerland-born American artist. She was best known for her murals and for her association with the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, for whom she produced the only existing photographs ...

(Crowell, 1961) * ''Starfish'' illus. Lucienne Bloch (Crowell, 1962) * ''Sailers, Whalers and Steamers: Ships that Opened the West'' illus. Lyle Galloway (Lane, 1964) * ''Who Will Be Mine?'' illus. by photographs (Golden Gate, 1966) * ''The White Horse'' illus. Tony Chen (Harper, 1970) * ''Come With Me to Nursery School'' illus. Edward Bigelow (Coward, 1970) * ''Dinosaur, My Darling'' illus. by

Don Freeman Don Freeman (August 11, 1908 – February 1, 1978) was an American painter, printmaker, cartoonist, and an illustrator and writer of children's books. He was active from the 1930s to the 1970s and often used Times Square as the backdrop of hi ...

(Harper & Row, 1978) * ''The Black Dog Who Went into the Woods'' illus.

Emily Arnold McCully Emily Arnold McCully (born July 1, 1939) is an American writer and illustrator who is best known for children's books. She won the annual Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration in 1993 recognizing ''Mirette on the High Wire'' which she ...

(Harper, 1980) * ''I Dance in My Red Pajamas'' illus. Emily Arnold McCully (Harper, 1982) * ''Song of the Sea Otter'' illus. Jennifer Dewey (Pantheon, 1983)

with Margaret Wise Brown

* ''The Man in the Manhole and the Fix-It Men'', illus. Bill Ballantine (New York: W. R. Scott, 1946), written as "Juniper Sage", OCLC 1698467 * ''Five Little Firemen'', illus.

Tibor Gergely Tibor Gergely ( August 3, 1900 – January 13, 1978) was a Hungarian-American artist best known for his illustration of popular children's picture books. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics ...

(Little Golden Books, 1948) * ''The Little Fat Policeman'', illus. Alice and Martin Provensen (Little Golden Books, 1950)

Illustrated by Clement Hurd

* ''Benny the Bulldozer'' (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1947) * ''Caboose'' (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1950) * ''Little Brass Band'' (Harper, 1955) * ''Windy and the Willow Whistle'' (Sterling, 1956) * ''Mr. Charlie, the Fireman's Friend'' (Lippincott, 1958) * ''Last One Home is a Green Pig'' (Harper, 1959) * ''Hurry Hurry'' (Harper, 1960) — re-issue of a book published in 1938 by W. R. Scott with illustrations by Mary Pepperrell Dana * ''Come and Have Fun'' (Harper, 1962) * ''Christmas Eve'' (Harper, 1962) * ''No Funny Business'' (Harper, 1962) * ''The Day the Sun Danced'' (Harper, 1965) * ''Johnny Lion's Book'' (Harper, 1965) * ''What Whale? Where?'' (Harper, 1966) * ''The Blue Heron Tree'' (Viking, 1968) * ''This is the Forest'' (Coward-McCann, 1969) * ''Catfish'' (Viking, 1970) * ''Johnny Lion's Bad Day'' (Harper, 1970) * ''Wilson's World'' (Harper, 1971) * ''Johnny Lion's Rubber Boots'' (Harper, 1972) * ''The Mother Owl'' (Little, Brown, 1974) * ''The Mother Kangaroo'' (Little, Brown, 1976) * ''Look for a Bird'' (Harper & Row, 1977) * ''The Mother Chimpanzee'' (Little, Brown, 1978) * ''Under the Lemon Tree'' (Little, Brown, 1980)

Notes

References

External links

* * *
Juniper Sage
(joint pseudonym) at LC Authorities, with 1 record {{DEFAULTSORT:Hurd, Edith Thacher 1910 births 1997 deaths Writers from Kansas City, Missouri Radcliffe College alumni Bank Street College of Education alumni American children's writers American women children's writers 20th-century American women writers Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area People from Walnut Creek, California People of the United States Office of War Information