Natalie Babbitt

Natalie Zane Babbitt (née Moore; July 28, 1932 – October 31, 2016) was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Her 1975 novel ''Tuck Everlasting'' was adapted into two feature films and a Broadway musical. She received the Newbery Honor and Christopher Award, and was the U.S. nominee for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1982.

Biography

Natalie Moore was born in Dayton, Ohio, on July 28, 1932. She studied at Laurel School in Cleveland, and Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She was married to Samuel Fisher Babbitt, and the couple had three children, born between 1956 and 1960."Natalie Babbitt"
Courtesy of Natalie Babbitt. 1996. ipl2 (ipl.org). Retrieved February 5, 2013.

The Babbitts collaborated to create ''The Forty-ninth Magician'', a picture book, that he wrote and she illustrated, published by Pantheon Books in 1966. Samuel became too busy to participate but editor Michael di Capua, at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, encouraged Natalie to continue producing children's books. After writing and illustrating two short books in verse, she turned to children's novels, and her fourth effort in that vein, ''Knee-Knock Rise'', was awarded a Newbery Honor in 1971.

''Tuck Everlasting'', published in 1975, was named an ALA Notable book and continues to be popular with teachers. It was ranked 16th among the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all time in a 2012 survey published by ''School Library Journal''. Two of her books have been adapted as movies: ''Tuck Everlasting'' (twice, in 1981 and in 2002) and ''The Eyes of the Amaryllis'' in 1982. The novel was also adapted as a Broadway musical, which premiered in Atlanta on February 4, 2015, and played on Broadway from April 26 to May 29, 2016.

In addition to her own writing, Babbitt also illustrated a number of books by Valerie Worth. Babbitt died on October 31, 2016, at her home in Hamden, Connecticut. She had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Critical appraisal

With the novel ''Goody Hall'' (1971), the writer was a finalist in the Edgar Allan Poe Award.

In 1977, ''The New York Times'' called Babbitt "Indisputably one of our most gifted and ambitious writers for children".

In 1982, another ''Times'' reviewer, George Woods, enjoyed Babbitt's ''Herbert Rowbarge''. "Mrs. Babbitt creates a plausible world and peoples it with believable humans, but the most satisfaction comes from the pleasure of her company as she effortlessly takes the reader in velvet-gloved hand to point out life's coincidences and near misses."

In 2002, Melanie Rehak, also writing in the ''Times'', described Babbitt's ''Tuck Everlasting'' as a "slim, ruminative" novel, and stated that "From the moment it appeared, it has been fiercely loved by children and their parents for its honest, intelligent grappling with aging and death."

In 2012, Babbitt was awarded the inaugural E.B. White Award for achievement in children's literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Bibliography

Picture books (‡) were written and illustrated by Babbitt unless noted up

As writer

* 1967 ''Dick Foote and the Shark'' ‡
* 1968 ''Phoebe's Revolt'' ‡
* 1969 ''The Search for Delicious'', self-illus.
* 1970 ''Knee-Knock Rise'', self-illus.
* 1970 '' The Something'' ‡
* 1971 ''Goody Hall'', self-illus.
* 1974 ''The Devil's Storybook'', self-illus.
* 1975 ''Tuck Everlasting''
* 1977 ''The Eyes of the Amaryllis''
* 1982 ''Herbert Rowbarge''
* 1987 ''The Devil's Other Storybook'', self-illus.
* 1989 '' Nellie: A Cat on Her Own'' ‡
* 1990 " Bus for Deadhorse", illus. Jon Agee, in Ann Durrell and Marilyn Sachs, eds., ''The Big Book for Peace'' (E. P. Dutton)
* 1994 '' Bub: Or the Very Best Thing'' ‡
* 1998 '' Ouch!: A Tale from Grimm'', illus. Fred Marcellino ‡
* 2001 '' Elsie Times Eight'' ‡
* 2007 '' Jack Plank Tells Tales'', self-illus.
* 2011 '' The Moon Over High Street''
* 2012 '' The Devil's Storybooks'' – omnibus edition of '' The Devil's Storybook'' and '' The Devil's Other Storybook''
*2018 ''Barking with the Big Dogs: On Writing and Reading Books for Children''

As illustrator

* 1966 Samuel Babbitt, '' The Forty-ninth Magician'' ‡
* 1972 Valerie Worth, '' Small Poems''
* 1994 Valerie Worth, '' All the Small Poems and Fourteen More''
* 2002 Valerie Worth, '' Peacock and Other Poems''

References

Further reading

* Marina Caracciolo, ''Un romanzo fantastico non esclusivamente per ragazzi: La fonte magica (Tuck Everlasting), di Natalie Babbitt''; in ''Otto saggi brevi'', Genesi Editrice, Torino (I), 2017

External links

Natalie Babbitt
nbsp;– at NCBLA Board of Directors, with two speeches


nbsp;– finding aid at University of Connecticut, with biography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Babbitt, Natalie
1932 births
2016 deaths
American children's writers
American children's book illustrators
American women illustrators
American women novelists
Newbery Honor winners
Artists from Dayton, Ohio
Smith College alumni
Writers from Dayton, Ohio
American women children's writers
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers
Deaths from lung cancer in Connecticut
Novelists from Ohio