SHUB, Elizabeth 1915(?)-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born c. 1915 in Poland; died June 18, 2004, in New York, NY. Editor and author. Shub was a prominent children's book editor best known for her translations of stories by her friend Isaac Bashevis Singer. Although she had attended Brooklyn College, she did not begin her active career until after she and her husband divorced. Offered a job in the children's department of Harper and Row, she quickly realized she had a gift for editing. She moved to Charles Scribner's Sons in the mid-1960s, to Macmillan Publishing from the late 1960s through 1975, and to Greenwillow Books in 1975, where she was made senior editor. Shub was a talented translator of books from German and Yiddish into English, and she worked on children's titles by such authors as the Brothers Grimm, Theodor Fontane, Wilhelm Hauff, and Sholem Weichem. However, it was for her collaborative efforts with Singer, whom she helped convince to venture into children's stories in the first place, that she was most often recognized. She assisted Singer with translating such children's classics as Zlateh the Goat, and Other Stories (1966) and The Fools of Chelm (1973). Shub was also a children's author in her own right, publishing the books Seeing Is Believing (1979), The White Stallion (1982), and Cutlass in the Snow (1986). Honored with two Newbery Honor Book awards for her work with Singer, an American Library Association Notable Book award for her translation of Fontane's Sir Ribbeck of Ribbeck of Havelland, and a 1982 honor listing for translation from the International Board on Books for Young People, Shub retired from Greenwillow in 1996.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2004, Section 3, p. 11.

New York Times, June 22, 2004, p. A21.