Buckley, Susan (Susan Washburn Buckley)

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Buckley, Susan (Susan Washburn Buckley)

Personal

Born in LA.

Addresses

Home—New York, NY.

Career

Writer, editor, and curriculum developer. Project director in social studies programs for Holt, Prentice-Hall, and Scholastic; curriculum developer for National Geographic Society, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Oxford University Press; Gale Institute, senior program consultant for "Different Ways of Knowing" program. Editor of AppleSeeds (children's magazine).

Writings

(With Elspeth Leacock) Journeys in Time: A New Atlas of American History, illustrated by Rodica Prato, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2001.

(With Elspeth Leacock) Places in Time: A New Atlas of American History, illustrated by Randy Jones, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2001.

(As Susan Washburn Buckley) The Industrial Revolution: 1790-1850, National Geographic Society (Washington, DC), 2002.

(With Elspeth Leacock) Journeys for Freedom: A New Look at America's Story, illustrated by Rodica Prato, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006.

(With Elspeth Leacock) Kids Make History: A New Look at America's Story, illustrated by Randy Jones, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006.

Also author of professional resource books for teachers. General editor of "We the People" (social studies textbook series), Houghton Mifflin.

Sidelights

Susan Buckley is the coauthor of a number of critically acclaimed works of nonfiction for young readers, including Journeys for Freedom: A New Look at America's Story. A consultant in editorial and curriculum development, Buckley has worked in educational publishing for several decades. There, she has developed social-studies programs for such publishers as Holt, Prentice-Hall, and Scholastic, and she has served as a curriculum developer for the National Geographic Society and Oxford University Press, among others. In addition, Buckley acted as general editor of Houghton Mifflin's textbook series "We the People" and edits AppleSeeds magazine for children.

In 2001, Buckley joined frequent collaborator Elspeth Leacock in writing the companion volumes Journeys in Time: A New Atlas of American History and Places in Time: A New Atlas of American History. In the former, the coauthors use "story maps" to depict twenty journeys that helped shape the history of the United States, focusing on such well-known events as Christopher Columbus's voyage to the New World and the cross-continent expedition of Lewis and Clark, as well as the journeys of Venture Smith, an enslaved African prince, and Dame Shirley, a New Englander who traveled west to join the California gold rush. In Journeys in Time, according to School Library Journal contributor Pamela K. Bomboy, "a winning blend of facts, maps, and the drama of a well-written story results in an unusual and exciting view" of U.S. history.

Places in Time offers depictions of twenty historically significant locales, among them the ancient city of Cahokia, the battlefields of Saratoga and Gettysburg, Fort Laramie, and New York's Ellis Island. "The text is clear and interesting," observed Kliatt critic Daniel J. Levinson in a review of the two works, and John Peters stated in his review for Booklist that Buckley and Leacock "have drawn their information not just from published documents but from archives and their own interviews as well." Journeys in Time and Places in Time "will not turn geographically challenged youngsters into charting scholars, but they do hold potential for reinforcing location skills and relationship observations in a pleasant, nonthreatening format," remarked a Horn Book contributor.

Buckley and Elspeth also collaborated on Journeys for Freedom, which tells the stories of twenty individuals who escaped from persecution or enslavement. The coauthors profile such figures as Elizabeth Brasseux, an Acadian exiled from Nova Scotia; Wetatonmi, a Nez Perce pursued by the U.S. Army; Peter McBride, a Mormon settler in Salt Lake City; Israel Veleris, a Jew who fled Nazi Germany, and Peter Malual, one of the "lost boys" of the Sudan. A critic in Kirkus Reviews described the book as a "purposefully inspirational volume," and Booklist contributor GraceAnne A. DeCandido called Journeys for Freedom "as powerful as it is useful." In Kids Make History: A New Look at America's Story, Buckley and Elspeth chronicle the experiences of twenty children and teens, including Nick Wilson, a rider for the Pony Express; Jane Sever, a visitor to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair; and Joan Zuber, a young girl who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the words of a Kirkus Reviews critic, "this useful resource will be a hit with teachers and students alike."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2001, John Peters, reviews of Journeys in Time: A New Atlas of American History and Places in Time: A New Atlas of American History, p. 1866; November 15, 2006, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Journeys for Freedom: A New Look at America's Story, p. 44.

Horn Book, July 1, 2001, reviews of Journeys in Time and Places in Time, p. 471.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2006, reviews of Journeys for Freedom and Kids Make History: A New Look at America's Story, p. 1067.

Kliatt, July, 2003, Daniel J. Levinson, reviews of Journeys in Time and Places in Time, p. 48.

School Library Journal, June, 2001, Pamela K. Bomboy, review of Journeys in Time, p. 176; January, 2007, Grace Oliff, review of Journeys for Freedom, p. 145, and Lisa Gangemi Kropp, review of Kids Make History, p. 146.