WINN, Marie 1936 (?)-

PERSONAL: Born c. 1936 in Prague, Czechoslovakia; immigrated to United States, 1939; daughter of Joseph (a doctor) and Joan (a lawyer and newscaster; maiden name, Taussig) Winn; married Allan Miller (a filmmaker), April, 1961; children: Steven, Michael. Education: Attended Radcliffe College, 1954-56; Columbia University, B.S., 1959.

ADDRESSES: Home—194 Riverside Dr., New York, NY. Agent—Georges Borchardt, Inc., 136 East 57th St., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Freelance writer, translator, and reviewer.

MEMBER: PEN, Authors Guild.

AWARDS, HONORS: Red-Tails in Love was a New York Times Notable Book, 1998; Children without Childhood was winner of the Grand Prix, International Janusz Korczak Competition, 1985; Plug-In Drug was selected as a "notable book" by the American Library Association.

WRITINGS:

FOR CHILDREN

(Editor; with musical arrangements by husband, Allan Miller) The Fireside Book of Children's Songs, illustrated by John Alcorn, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1966.

The Fisherman Who Needed a Knife: A Story about Why People Use Money, illustrated by John E. Johnson, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1970.

The Man Who Made Fine Tops: A Story about Why People Do Different Kinds of Work, illustrated by John E. Johnson, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1970.

(Editor and compiler; with musical arrangements by Allan Miller) What Shall We Do and Allee Galloo!: Playsongs and Singing Games for Young Children, illustrated by Karla Kuskin, Harper (New York, NY), 1970.

Shiver, Gobble, and Snore, illustrated by Whitney Darrow, Jr., Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1971.

The Thief Catcher: A Story about Why People Pay Taxes, illustrated by Whitney Darrow, Jr., Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1972.

(Compiler and editor; with musical arrangements by Allan Miller) The Fireside Book of Fun and Game Songs, illustrated by Whitney Darrow, Jr., Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1974.

The Sick Book: Questions and Answers about Hiccups and Mumps, Sneezes and Bumps, and Other Things That Go Wrong with Us, illustrated by Fred Brenner, Four Winds Press (New York, NY), 1976.

OTHER

(With Mary Ann Porcher) The Playgroup Book, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1967, revised edition published as The Playgroup Book: How to Plan, Organise, and Run Group Activities for Pre-School Children, Fontana (London, England), 1971.

(Compiler) The Baby Reader: Fifty-six Selections from World Literature about Babies and Their Mothers, Fathers, Admirers, and Adversaries, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1973.

(Translator, from the Czech) Zdena Salivarova, Summer in Prague, Harper (New York, NY), 1973.

The Plug-In Drug: Television, Children, and the Family, Viking (New York, NY), 1977, revised and updated 25th anniversary edition published as The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life, Penguin (New York, NY), 2002.

Children without Childhood, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1983.

Unplugging the Plug-In Drug, Penguin (New York, NY), 1987.

(Translator, from the Czech) Vaclav Havel, Temptation, Grove Press (New York, NY), 1989.

(Author of commentary) Bruce Davidson, Central Park, Aperture (New York, NY), 1995.

Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1998.

(Translator) Jiri Weil, Mendelssohn Is on the Roof, Northwestern University Press (Evanston, IL), 1998.

Also contributor of articles to New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Wall Street Journal, and Parade.

SIDELIGHTS: Author Marie Winn was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and came to the United States when she was three years old. Her family settled in a Czech neighborhood in New York City, and continued to speak Czech at home and among their friends, so Winn grew up speaking both English and Czech.

Winn's father, a doctor, provided medical services for the neighborhood, and her mother, who was a lawyer when the family lived in Czechoslovakia, worked for the radio network "Voice of America."

After Winn married and had two sons, she began writing children's books. She once told a writer for Something about the Author, "Almost everything I've ever written has in some way centered on children. . . . This is one of my obsessive and natural interests; I even catch myself eavesdropping on kids' conversations."

Her first book, The Fireside Book of Children's Songs, was a collection of music for children, and included musical arrangements by her husband, filmmaker Allan Miller. Her second book, written with coauthor Mary Ann Porcher, was The Playgroup Book, which showed parents how to plan and organize activities for preschoolers.

Winn was delighted with the success of her books, because it allowed her to work at home, with her children. Although her writing work sometimes required her to travel to do research and give interviews, she was aided by her sons' two grandmothers, who helped her raise them.

While taking care of her sons, Winn noticed that childrearing practices had changed radically since her own youth. She began considering the nature of this change, and exploring it in her work. Through extensive interviews with parents and children, she determined that children were being raised to be much more precocious and "adultlike" than in previous generations. Winn noted in Something about the Author, "The carefree years have disappeared." As a result, Winn noted, adults are no longer as protective of children as they used to be: "Kids' books feature rape, abortion, child-molestation, incest. . . . As adults we should be working to prevent these problems, not to expose our kids to them." In addition, she commented that many children go to R-rated movies, often with their families, despite these movies' depictions of extreme violence and explicit sex. Winn discussed these phenomena in Children without Childhood.

In The Plug-In Drug, Winn explored the impact of television on children and on family life, noting that this impact is largely negative: television is as addictive and as destructive as heroin. And, she noted, family life that is not dominated by television viewing is richer and more positive for children and parents alike. Rather than discussing the programs children watch on television, she substantiated the negative effects of television viewing, regardless of content, on children's play, imagination, and school work, and detailed its impact on various aspects of child development. In 2002, Winn published a revised and updated version of the book, titled, The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life. It included new chapters on the effects of home computers, VCRs, and video games, as well as of television itself.

Between 1989 and 2001, Winn wrote occasional columns on nature and birdwatching for the Leisure and Arts page of the Wall Street Journal. Some of these columns formed the core of her 1998 book, Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, her first book to abandon children as either a subject or an audience. The book's scene is the "ramble," an unknown wilderness in the heart of New York's Central Park. There an odd and amiable band of nature lovers devote themselves to observing and protecting the park's wildlife. When a pair of red-tailed hawks builds a nest atop a Fifth Avenue apartment house across the street from the park, Winn and her fellow "regulars" are transformed into obsessed hawkwatchers. Winn describes the saga of the Fifth Avenue hawks as they struggle to raise a family in their unprecedented nest site, and draws a vivid picture of the humans who fall under their spell. In the New York Times Book Review, Patricia T. O'Connor wrote, "Winn infects the reader with her enthusiasm for the park."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, March 26, 1977.

Booklist, January 1, 1985, review of The Plug-In Drug, p. 603; July, 1985, p. 1571; September 15, 1987, review of Unplugging the Plug-In Drug, p. 97; February 1, 1998, Nancy Bent, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 887.

Book Report, September, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, p. 71.

Books, summer, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 8.

Childhood Education, December, 1986, review of Children without Childhood, p. 136.

Commonweal, August 10, 1984, review of Children without Childhood, p. 444.

Journalism Quarterly, spring, 1986, review of The Plug-In Drug, revised edition, p. 219; spring, 1988, review of Unplugging the Plug-In Drug, p. 221.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1987, review of Unplugging the Plug-In Drug, p. 1307; February 1, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 187.

Kliatt, spring, 1985, review of The Plug-In Drug, p. 56; July 1999, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 37.

Library Journal, January, 1986, review of The Plug-In Drug, revised edition, p. 66; September 15, 1987, review of Unplugging the Plug-In Drug, p. 73; March 1, 1999, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 48; May 1, 2002, Leroy Hommerding, review of The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life, p. 116.

Ms., May, 1985, review of Children without Childhood, p. 42.

New Yorker, April 13, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 77.

New York Review of Books, September 24, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 41.

New York Times Book Review, April 5, 1998, Patricia O'Conner, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 11; May 31, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 28; December 6, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 86; April 4, 1999, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 24.

Publishers Weekly, June 10, 1983; April 20, 1984, review of Children without Childhood, p. 86; February 15, 1991, Sybil Steinberg, review of Mendelssohn Is on the Roof, p. 75; January 19, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 363.

Reference and Research Book News, June, 1988, review of Unplugging the Plug-In Drug, p. 10.

School Library Journal, August, 1998, p. 199.

Times Educational Supplement, November 2, 1984, review of Children without Childhood, p. 20.

Virginia Quarterly Review, autumn 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. 142.

Voice of Youth Advocates, February, 1984, review of Children without Childhood, p. 352.

Wall Street Journal, April 10, 1998, review of Red-Tails in Love, p. W6.

Washington Post, August 15, 1983.