LITTLEFIELD, Holly 1963-

PERSONAL: Born April 6, 1963, in OH; daughter of Charles (a counselor) and Marilyn (a university administrator; maiden name, Hughes; present surname, Scamman) Littlefield; married John Enright, October 22, 1988; children: Patrick, Brennan. Education:University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, B.A., 1985, M.A., 1992, Ph.D., 1999. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, movies, sailing, travel.

ADDRESSES: Home—15212 65th Place N., Maple Grove, MN 55311. Office—1-105 Carlson, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: High school teacher in Osseo, MN, 1985-92; University of Minnesota—Minneapolis, researcher and teacher of managerial communication, 1992—.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America, National Council of Teachers of English, Phi Beta Kappa.

WRITINGS:

Fire at the Triangle Factory (fiction), illustrated by Mary O'Keefe Young, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 1996.

(With Lillian Bridwell-Bowles and Kathleen Sheerin DeVore) Identity Matters: Rhetorics of Difference, Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ), 1998.

"COLORS OF THE WORLD" SERIES

The Colors of Germany, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 1997.

The Colors of Japan, illustrated by Helen Byers, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 1997.

Colors of Ghana, illustrations by Barbara Knutson, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 1999.

Colors of India, illustrations by Janice Lee Porter, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2000.

"PICTURE THE AMERICAN PAST" SERIES

Children of the Trail West, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 1999.

Children of the Orphan Trains, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2001.

Children of the Indian Boarding Schools, Carolrhoda (Minneapolis, MN), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Children's writer Holly Littlefield's first book, Fire at the Triangle Factory, is a fictional account of the 1911 fire that consumed the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in the garment district of New York City, which was located on the top three floors of a ten-story building. Of the 500 hundred workers, mostly female Jewish immigrants, some as young as fourteen, 146 died in less than fifteen minutes, a tragedy that was attributed to the fact that the exit doors had been locked to keep the workers at their sewing machines. The owners were acquitted of manslaughter charges and later ordered to pay damages of $75 to each of the victims' families. As a result of the fire, the City of New York initiated safety programs within the fire department, and the organizational efforts of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union intensified, a first step in the ongoing campaign for workplace safety. Littlefield offers the history of the fire through the eyes of two girls, Jewish Minnie, and Irish-Catholic Tessa, coworkers in the factory, imparting lessons in friendship and responsibility at the level of the younger reader.

Littlefield wrote several titles for Carolrhoda's "Colors of the World" series, introducing children to the cultures and images of countries that include Germany, Japan, Ghana, and India. She also wrote for that publisher's "Picture the American Past" series. Children of the Trail West is an account of the youngest of the family members who rode wagon trains across the country to the Western frontier. Children of the Orphan Trains tells how, from 1854 to 1929, thousands of homeless or orphaned children were sent West, some to loving families who made a place for them, but others to people who were merely looking for a servant or farmhand.

Children of the Indian Boarding Schools is a history of how, beginning in 1879, the United States government took Native-American children from their parents and reservations and put them in boarding schools to learn English and Christianity. They were stripped of their culture, forced to cut their hair and wear "modern" clothing, as depicted in before-and-after pictures of three young men, first in their native dress, then in the mandated attire. Each page of the volume contains a sepia-toned print. School Library Journal's Barbara Buckley commented that the section of the book titled "Understanding Historical Photographs" is "one of the most valuable" and felt that it alone "could be fodder for hours of discussion." Booklist's Hazel Rochman noted that Littlefield "ends with excellent suggestions for further reading and classroom projects."

Littlefield once commented: "I really love the challenge of writing for children. When I was a child I read constantly, and I would like to think that I am writing the kinds of books that I would have enjoyed then and that my own children will like. I also like to do the research that goes with writing these books. So much of history is about what the adults did and said. I try to find and tell the children's stories."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Arts and Activities, December, 2001, Jerome J. Hausman, review of Colors of India, p. 8.

Booklist, May 15, 2001, Hazel Rochman, review of Children of the Orphan Trains, and Children of the Indian Boarding School, p. 1748.

School Library Journal, January, 1998, review of Colors of Japan, p. 102; June, 1998, review of Colors of Germany, p. 130; July, 2001, Barbara Buckley, review of Children of the Indian Boarding Schools, p. 95.*