Susan Hirschman was the founder of children's publisher

Greenwillow Books HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp ...

Career

Hirschman was born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, and lived there for her entire career. She was inspired to enter publishing during high school when she heard a talk by Jennie Lindquist. Her first job was in 1954, working as a secretary at publisher

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

. She later moved to Sandpiper Press, and from there to

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

, where she worked under

Ursula Nordstrom Ursula Nordstrom (February 2, 1910 – October 11, 1988) was publisher and editor-in-chief of juvenile books at Harper & Row from 1940 to 1973. She is credited with presiding over a transformation in children's literature in which morality tales ...

. After taking time off from Harper & Row, she was quickly hired by

Macmillan MacMillan, Macmillan, McMillen or McMillan may refer to: People * McMillan (surname) * Clan MacMillan, a Highland Scottish clan * Harold Macmillan, British statesman and politician * James MacMillan, Scottish composer * William Duncan MacMillan ...

to head their children's book publishing division. She remained there until October 1974, when she resigned in protest of a mass firing. She founded Greenwillow as an imprint of William Morrow (now

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...

), where she remained until her retirement in 2001.

Works published

During Hirschman's career, she was responsible for the US publication of ''

Watership Down ''Watership Down'' is an adventure novel by English author Richard Adams, published by Rex Collings Ltd of London in 1972. Set in Berkshire in southern England, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural ...

'', as well as works by children's authors

Kevin Henkes Kevin Henkes (born November 27, 1960) is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. As an illustrator he won the Caldecott Medal for ''Kitten's First Full Moon'' (2004). Two of his books were Newbery Medal Honor Books, ''Olive's Ocea ...

and

Jack Prelutsky Jack Prelutsky (born September 8, 1940) is an American writer of children's poetry who has published over 50 poetry collections. He served as the first U.S. Children's Poet Laureate (now called the Young People's Poet Laureate) from 2006–08 ...

References

{{Authority control People from Manhattan American book editors Children's book publishers