Williams, Vera B(aker) 1927-

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WILLIAMS, Vera B(aker) 1927-

PERSONAL: Born January 28, 1927, in Hollywood, CA; immigrated to Canada, 1970; daughter of Albert S. and Rebecca (Porringer) Baker; married Paul Williams (an architect; divorced, 1970); children: Sarah, Jennifer, Merce (son). Education: Black Mountain School, B.A., 1949; also attended Boston Museum School. Hobbies and other interests: Art, teaching, parenting, food, nature, justice and social issues.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Greenwillow Books, 105 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

CAREER: Writer, graphic artist, educator, and political activist. Gate Hill Cooperative Community, Stony Point, NY, cofounder, teacher, and member, 1953-70; Collaberg School (alternative school for children), Stony Point, NY, cofounder and teacher, 1960-69; Everdale School, Ontario, Canada, teacher and cook, 1970-73; author and illustrator of books for children, 1975—; Goddard College, Plainfield, VT, instructor, 1980-82. Member of executive committee, War Resisters League, 1984-87.

MEMBER: PEN, Authors Guild, Authors League of America.

AWARDS, HONORS: Parents' Choice Award for Illustration, Parents' Choice Foundation, 1981, for Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe; School Library Journal Best Children's Books selections, 1982, for A Chair for My Mother, and 1983, for Something Special for Me; Caldecott Honor Book citation, American Library Association, 1983, for A Chair for My Mother, and 1990, for "More More More," Said the Baby: Three Love Stories; Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Illustration, 1983, and Other Award, Children's Book Bulletin, 1984, both for A Chair for My Mother; Music, Music for Everyone named a Jane Addams Children's honor book, Jane Addams Peace Association, 1985; Cherries and Cherry Pits named a Parents' Choice Award in Literature notable book, chosen one of Child Study Association of America's Children's Books of the Year, and selected as one of New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year, all 1986, and was named a Boston Globe-Horn Book honor picturebook, 1987; Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea named a Boston Globe-Horn Book honor book, 1988; Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction, 1994, for Scooter; Charlotte Zolotow Award, 1998, for Lucky Song; Boston Globe-Horn Book Award nomination, 2002, for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart.

WRITINGS:

children's books; self-illustrated

It's a Gingerbread House: Bake It, Build It, Eat It! Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1978.

The Great Watermelon Birthday, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1980.

Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1981.

A Chair for My Mother, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1981.

Something Special for Me, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1983.

Music, Music for Everyone, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1984.

Cherries and Cherry Pits, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1986.

My Mother, Leah, and George Sand, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1986.

(With daughter Jennifer Williams) Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1988.

"More More More," Said the Baby: Three Love Stories, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1990.

Scooter, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1993.

Lucky Song, Greenwillow Press (Westport, CT), 1997.

Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart: The Story of Amber and Essie Told Here in Poems and Pictures, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

children's books; illustrator

Remy Charlip and Lilian Moore, Hooray for Me!, Parents Magazine Press (New York, NY), 1975.

Barbara Brenner, Our Class Presents Ostrich Feathers: A Play in Two Acts, Parents Magazine Press (New York, NY), 1978.

other:

(Illustrator) Grace Paley, Long Walks and Intimate Talks, Feminist Press (New York, NY), 1991.

ADAPTATIONS: A Chair for My Mother (read-along cassette; filmstrip with cassette), Random House; Something Special for Me (cassette), Random House.

SIDELIGHTS: Vera B. Williams "brings to the picturebook genre a uniquely honest and celebratory portrait of working-class culture which has seldom been executed so successfully," according to Twentieth-Century Children's Writers contributor Nancy Tillman Romalov. Romalov went on to assert that, "as much as is possible using the picture-book format, Williams is able to convey a strong sense of working-class life without glossing over the hardships or adjustments her economically disadvantaged characters face."

Williams is perhaps best known for her books about Rosa, a fictional Hispanic child from a family that is loving but poor. Named a Caldecott honor book for its illustrations, A Chair for My Mother tells how the girl and her family, with the help of friends, overcome the misfortune of a house fire that destroys their belongings. The story was developed from the author's memories of economic sacrifices made by her family when her mother bought a chair by installment plan payments. As Williams once explained, "When I got the inspiration for the book, I had the wonderful feeling that I now had the power, as a writer and an illustrator, to change the past into something happier than it really was, and to offer it as a gift to my mother's memory." A Kirkus Reviews appraisal of A Chair for My Mother asserted that "It's rare to find so much vitality, spontaneity, and depth of feeling in such a simple, young book."

Something Special for Me, which is "a visual and emotional treat" according to School Library Journal contributor Ellen Fader, follows Rosa as she goes on a shopping trip to buy herself a birthday gift with her family's hard-earned money. Eventually, she decides to get an accordion so that her birthday present will also benefit the other members of the family. Music, Music for Everyone concludes the series, portraying a fund-raising performance by Rosa and her young musician friends. New York Times Book Review writer Josephine Humphreys called Music, Music for Everyone "a gently exuberant book."

Williams followed the Rosa trilogy with Cherries and Cherry Pits, a book that explores the creative imagination and its power to change. The story features two contrasting styles of art: the adult work of the narrator and the childlike drawings of the narrator's young friend Bidemmi. In an online interview with BookWire contributor Neena Sakaria, Williams likened Bidemmi's character to that of herself as a child: "I have been impelled from my earliest years to imagine and describe my world in words and pictures." Like Cherries and Cherry Pits, Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea draws upon a wide variety of artistic forms, incorporating illustrated postcards, stamps, and snapshots into the story of a boy's travels with his brother.

Williams's illustrations are all the more prominent in her picture books for preschoolers. "More More More," Said the Baby celebrates the joyful simplicity of love; it earned Williams her second Caldecott award. Lucky Song tells the story of Evie's lucky day, in which her every ordinary desire is fulfilled—she wants a new toy and is promptly given a handmade kite by her grandfather; she wants supper, and her grandmother has it waiting for her. Williams celebrates the magic of family in what a Publishers Weekly reviewer called a "quiet but inviting book."

Williams introduces a more problematic social background in the picture book Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart. Here her protagonists are two young sisters who are waiting for their father to be released from prison. However, the mutual love and creativity of Amber and Essie—characters based on Williams and her older sister—shine through in Williams's eloquent illustrations and simple prose poems. Amber and Essie "shows how small moments tell a big story," commented Shelle Rosenfeld in Booklist.

Marking Williams's first move beyond the picture book, Scooter is "perhaps the most original and captivating novel for younger readers since Charlotte's Web, " according to a contributor to St. James Guide to Children's Writers. Featuring spunky heroine Elana Rose Rosen and focusing on Elana's attempts to start a new life after her parents' divorce, Scooter celebrates community and friendship. Elana gathers together people of all ages from her new home—a high-rise apartment building in New York City—with her "completely genuine and natural" exuberance, noted Horn Book reviewer Hanna B. Zeiger. Williams opens each chapter with hand-lettered acrostics and includes doodle art in the margins, making the book appear to have been composed by its protagonist. "Feisty Elana's forthright voice supercharges the first-person narrative," a Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote.

Williams's familiarity with working-class culture comes from her own childhood. Her immigrant parents encouraged their daughters to develop artistic talents, and they "became involved with art, dramatics, crafts, games and dance with a student of Isadora Duncan," as Williams once recalled. One of the paintings Williams produced as a child was included in a Works Progress Administration exhibition at the Modern Museum of Art in New York, where the future author stood by her painting and answered questions asked by then-first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Williams has frequently devoted time to the causes of non-violence, children, women, and the environment, and she has occasionally been arrested for participating in demonstrations in support of those causes. "I don't make a point of ending up in jail," she once told an interviewer. "But if you try to put your hopes and beliefs for a better life into effect, arrest is sometimes a hazard. I am asked if I think any of this helps or works. I say, in the short run, we can't know, but many things we take for granted have been gained by the similar actions of people like myself: the end of child labor, more rights for black people, the vote for women, the end of the Vietnam War are a few. As a person who works for children, who raised three children … I have to be able to say I did something to try to save our planet from destruction. It is my faith that we will."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Children's Literature Review, Volume 9, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1985.

St. James Guide to Children's Writers, 5th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Silvey, Anita, editor, Children's Books and Their Creators, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995.

Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, 3rd edition, St. James Press (London, England), 1989.

periodicals

American Philatelist, August, 1999, review of Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea, p. 828.

Bookbird, winter, 1998, review of Lucky Song, p. 56.

Booklist, November 15, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 626; January 15, 1994, review of Scooter, p. 870; March 15, 1994, review of Scooter, p. 1352; February 1, 1995, review of Something Special for Me and A Chair for My Mother, p. 1013; October 1, 1997, Ilene Cooper, review of Lucky Song, p. 332; September 15, 2001, Shelle Rosenfeld, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart: The Story of Amber and Essie Told Here in Poems and Pictures, p. 227.

Books for Keeps, May, 1998, review of "More More More," Said the Baby, p. 21.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, October, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 62; September, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 3.

Childhood Education, winter, 1993, review of A Chair for My Mother, p. 106.

Children's Book Review Service, December, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 48; November, 1997, review of Lucky Song, p. 30.

Christian Science Monitor, November 5, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 10.

Five Owls, September, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 14; September, 1994, review of Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea, p. 3.

Horn Book, March, 1994, Hanna B. Zeiger, review of Scooter, p. 70; September, 1997, Martha V. Parravano, review of Lucky Song, p. 566; September, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 608.

Horn Book Guide, spring, 1994, review of Scooter, p. 84; fall, 1995, review of Something Special for Me, p. 340; spring, 1998, review of Lucky Song and "More More More," Said the Baby, p. 20.

Instructor, March, 1994, review of Music, Music for Everyone, p. 71; November, 1995, review of A Chair for My Mother, p. 57.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 1982, p. 1104; October 1, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 1281; June 15, 1997, review of Lucky Song, p. 959; August 1, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 1135.

Language Arts, September, 1994, review of Scooter, p. 372; October, 1994, review of Scooter, p. 462.

MultiCultural Review, June, 1993, review of "More More More," Said the Baby, p. 37.

New York Times Book Review, October 21, 1984, p. 35; November 14, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 30; April 19, 1998, review of Lucky Song, p. 33; November 18, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 56; December 2, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 73.

Parents' Choice, Volume 17, number 4, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 16.

Publishers Weekly, October 25, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 63; June 23, 1997, review of Lucky Song, p. 91; August 25, 1997, review of "More More More," Said the Baby, p. 73; March 26, 2001, review of Scooter, p. 95; August 27, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 84; November 5, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 35.

Reading Teacher, March, 1994, review of Scooter, p. 47.

Riverbank Review, summer, 2001, review of Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe, p. 19; fall, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 36.

School Library Journal, April, 1983, p. 108; October, 1993, review of Scooter, p. 134; November, 1994, review of A Chair for My Mother, p. 131; February, 1995, review of Something Special for Me, p. 127; April, 1995, review of A Chair for My Mother, p. 89; February, 1996, review of Music, Music for Everyone, p. 130; June, 1996, review of A Chair for My Mother, p. 55; August, 1997, review of Lucky Song, p. 144; September, 2001, Jeanne Clancy, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 209; November, 2001, "Vera B. Williams" (interviews), pp. 15-16; December, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 49.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), January 9, 1994, review of Scooter, p. 6; August 26, 2001, review of Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart, p. 4.