HOOPER, Patricia 1941-

PERSONAL: Born May 4, 1941, in Saginaw, MI; daughter of John (a pilot and furniture store owner) and Edythe (maiden name, Sharpe) Hooper; married John Everhardus (an attorney), June 22, 1963; children: John, Katherine. Education: University of Michigan, B.A., 1963, M.A., 1964.

ADDRESSES: Home—616 Yarmouth Rd., Bloomfield Township, MI 48301.

CAREER: Writer.

MEMBER: Poetry Society of America, Detroit Women Writers.

AWARDS, HONORS: Five Hopwood Awards, University of Michigan; Norma Farber First Book Award, Poetry Society of America, 1984, for Other Lives; Bernice W. Ames Award; Writer's Community Residency Award, National Writer's Voice, 1997.

WRITINGS:

Other Lives: Poems, Elizabeth Street Press (New York, NY), 1984.

A Bundle of Beasts (juvenile), illustrated by Mark Steele, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1987.

The Flowering Trees, State Street Press (Brockport, NY), 1995.

How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves (juvenile; alternate selection of Children's Book-of-the-Month Club), illustrated by Susan L. Roth, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1995.

At the Corner of the Eye (poetry), Michigan State University Press (East Lansing, MI), 1997.

A Stormy Ride on Noah's Ark (juvenile), illustrated by Lynn Munsinger, Putnam (New York, NY), 2001.

Where Do You Sleep, Little One? (juvenile), illustrated by John Winch, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2001.

Work represented in anthologies. Contributor to magazines, including American Scholar, Poetry, American Poetry Review, and Atlantic Monthly.

SIDELIGHTS: Patricia Hooper is a poet as well as a children's author noted for her inventiveness. Betsy Hearne of the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books noted the "exceptionally ingenious wordplay" that marks the twenty-five poems contained in A Bundle of Beasts, Hooper's first book for children. In this work, the author begins with the archaic names for groups of animals; thus, "A Skein of Wildfowl" is made by a "fast-knitting Grandma"; while a "Cast of Hawks" holds a "play for its prey," explained Cynthia Dobrez in School Library Journal. "Musically, the verse sings with the kind of lilting, spontaneous rhythms that [Shel] Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky manage so easily," commented Hearne, "and the tone is humorous as well." The book closes with information on Hooper's sources and suggested readings for adventurous students to find more, making this an ideal book for older children in a language arts program as well as the picture-book crowd, according to reviewers.

Reviews of Hooper's second book for children, How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves, were mixed. The imaginative flair of Hooper's premise, which Lauralyn Persson dubbed "an original pourquoi tale" in School Library Journal, was often praised. In this work, the author invents a housekeeper in the sky, who polishes the sun, dusts the moon, and does other similar chores while wearing a different colored scarf for each task. But when the rains come she stops her work, until the sun asks her back. She drapes the objects in the heavens with her scarves so that she may find her way home in the rain, and when the sun comes out to share the sky with the rain, a rainbow is created. Several critics considered Susan L. Roth's collage illustrations to have merit. "Unfortunately," commented a Publishers Weekly critic, "Hooper's plot is belabored and convoluted, arcing off in untidy and overlong tangents." While not all reviewers of How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves agreed, a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews remarked that "Hooper imbues her tale of origins with a sense of timelessness; her gods are fascinating if on the demanding side." More than one observer felt that the text was overshadowed by what Booklist contributor Julie Walton termed "Roth's almost hyperactive collages." "Nonetheless," Walton concluded, "the book remains a solid choice for its bold artistry and imaginative storytelling."

Where Do You Sleep, Little One? considers the resting places of creatures, from insects to large animals. It ends with a final scene that depicts the animals standing watch at the Nativity, although it is not so identified. A Publishers Weekly contributor described Hooper's rhymes as "simple but evocative."

Hooper focuses on the voyage itself in A Stormy Ride on Noah's Ark. The meek and mild animals are afraid to sleep for fear their meat-eating traveling companions might make a meal of them. But the carnivores are frightened by the storm that brings all the animals together with the realization that they must contribute to each other's safety and comfort. A wren sings, a mouse tells a story, and a spider spins a "web of sleep" to ease the fears of the mightiest of beasts. Booklist's Shelle Rosenfeld noted that the story is a universal one, "about the importance of developing trust, overcoming differences, and cooperating for the common good." A Horn Book critic concluded, "This (ultimately) peaceful bedtime story is a lighthearted yet respectful companion to traditional retellings of the biblical tale."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, August, 1987, p. 1748; March 15, 1995, Julie Walton, review of How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves, p. 1334; September 1, 2001, Marta Segal, review of Where Do You Sleep, Little One?, p. 115; October 1, 2001, Shelle Rosenfeld, review of A Stormy Ride on Noah's Ark, p. 337.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, July-August, 1987, Betsy Hearne, review of A Bundle of Beasts, p. 210.

Horn Book, November-December, 2001, review of A Stormy Ride on Noah's Ark, p. 736.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1987, p. 1070; April 15, 1995, review of How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves, p. 558; September 15, 2001, review of A Stormy Ride on Noah's Ark, p. 1359.

Publishers Weekly, October 5, 1984, p. 79; May 8, 1995, review of How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves, p. 295; August 27, 2001, review of Where Do You Sleep, Little One?, p. 83.

School Library Journal, January, 1988, Cynthia Dobrez, review of A Bundle of Beasts, p. 73; June, 1995, Lauralyn Persson, review of How the Sky's Housekeeper Wore Her Scarves, p. 87; December, 2001, Kathy Piehl, review of A Stormy Ride on Noah's Ark, p. 104.