Lois Lenski: Storycatcher

Lois Lenski: Storycatcher

Written by: Bobbie Malone
Hard Bound: 323 pages

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For generations of children, including a young Oprah Winfrey, opening a Lois Lenski book has meant opening a world.  This was just what the author wanted: to help children “see beyond the rim of their own world.”

In Lois Lenski: Storycatcher, historian and educator Bobbie Malone takes us into Lenski’s own world to tell the story of how a girl from a small Ohio town became a beloved literary icon.

Author and illustrator of the Newbery Award-winning Strawberry Girl and numerous other tails of children from America’s diverse regions and cultures, Lenski spent five decades creating stories for young readers.  Lois Lenski: Storycatcher follows her development as a writer and as an artist, and it traces the evolution of her passionate belief in the power of empathy conveyed in children’s books.  Understanding that youngsters responded instinctively to narratives rich in reality, Lenski turned her extensive study of  hardworking families into books that accurately and movingly depicted the lives of the children of sharecroppers, coal miners, and migrant field workers.  Linski’s books mirrored the cultural energy and concerns of the times.

This first full-length biography tells how Lenski traveled throughout the country, gathering the stories that brought the life in words and pictures whole worlds that had for so long been invisible to children’s literature.  In the process, her work became a source of delight, inspiration, and insight for generations of readers.