Cole, Sheila R. 1939–

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Cole, Sheila R. 1939–

(Sheila Rotenberg Cole)

Personal

Born January 5, 1939, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; daughter of Benjamin (a grocer) and Helen (Wise) Rotenberg; married Michael Cole (a research psychologist and university professor), December 18, 1957; children: Jennifer, Alexander. Education: Attended University of California, Los Angeles, 1957–59; Indiana University, B.A., 1961; Columbia University, M.S., 1965. Hobbies and other interests: Cooking, reading, gardening, sailing, hiking.

Addresses

Home—San Diego, CA. Agent—Jennifer Flannery, 1155 S. Washington St., Naperville, IL 60540. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Journalist and writer. Sunnyvale Daily Standard, Sunnyvale, CA, reporter, 1963–64; Community Progress, Inc., New Haven, CT, public information officer, 1965–66; Newport Beach Daily Pilot, Newport Beach, CA, reporter, 1966–67; University of California, Irvine, research assistant, 1968–69; freelance writer, 1969–; Deutsch, Shea & Evans, Inc., New York, NY, staff member, 1977; University of California, San Diego, consultant on interview techniques, 1979–80.

Member

Authors Guild, Author's League of America, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People.

Awards, Honors

Golden Kite Honor Book, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, 1974, for Meaning Well; Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, National Council for the Social Studies/Children's Book Council (NCSS/CBC), for Working Kids on Working; Pick of the Lists designation, American Booksellers Association, and Science for the Young Child listee, Booklist, both for When the Tide Is Low; Notable Chil-dren's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, NCSS/CBC, Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children designation, and Perrot Library Young Critics' Choice, all for The Dragon in the Cliff; What Kind of Love? The Diary of a Pregnant Teenager selected among Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, American Library Association Young Adult Library Services, 1996.

Writings

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Meaning Well, illustrated by Paul Raynor, Franklin Watts (New York, NY), 1974.

Working Kids on Working (nonfiction), photographs by Victoria Beller-Smith, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (New York, NY), 1980.

When the Tide Is Low, illustrated by Virginia Wright-Frierson, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (New York, NY), 1985.

The Dragon in the Cliff: A Novel Based on the Life of Mary Anning, illustrated by T.C. Farrow, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (New York, NY), 1991.

When the Rain Stops, illustrated by Henri Sorensen, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (New York, NY), 1991.

The Hen That Crowed, illustrated by Barbara Rogoff, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (New York, NY), 1993.

What Kind of Love?: The Diary of a Pregnant Teenager, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (New York, NY), 1995.

The Canyon, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

To Be Young in America: Growing up with the Country, 1776–1940 (nonfiction), Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2005.

OTHER

(Editor with husband, Michael Cole) A.R. Luria, The Making of Mind: A Personal Account of Soviet Psychology (autobiography), Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1979.

(With Michael Cole) The Development of Children (college textbook), W.H. Freeman & Co./Scientific American Books, 1989, 4th revised edition, Worth Publishers (New York, NY), 2001.

Contributor to The International Cook's Catalogue, Random House, 1977. Contributor of articles and book reviews to periodicals, including Psychology Today, Ms., New York Times Sunday Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Ladies' Home Journal, Human Nature, Nation, Chicago Tribune, and Banking.

Sidelights

Sheila R. Cole has written everything from picture books to young-adult novels to nonfiction works for both children and adults. From her Golden Kite Honor Book, Meaning Well, to her young-adult novel What Kind of Love? The Diary of a Pregnant Teenager, she shows her understanding of the feelings of the outsider, the person who feels estranged from those who are considered "normal," while other books draw on her interest in history, the environment, and child development.

Cole's understanding of the outsider came through her own life experiences, particularly while growing up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The daughter of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Cole was very aware that her family was not like those of her friends. Her parents did not speak English very well, and her mother, unlike other mothers at the time, had a job. Cole, desperate to fit in, decided to learn as much about American culture as possible, which led her to read books about all things American, from history to culture to cooking and, most of all, to stories. As Cole once told SATA, "I have always been addicted to stories. I love listening to them, reading them, making them up, and writing them. As far as I'm concerned, stories are one of the best ways of making sense of people's behavior."

Cole attributes her early career in journalism to her interest in people and their cultures. Her marriage to Michael Cole, a research psychologist, also provided her with an opportunity to travel and learn how others lived outside the United States. After graduating from Indiana University in 1961, she and her husband lived briefly in the then-Soviet Union, and they later spent time in Liberia, the Yucatan in Mexico, and London, England. "With each of these moves," she wrote in Lo-throp, Lee & Shepard publicity release, "has come a new experience of feeling 'different' and the need to find out everything about the place so I can make sense of it."

Being different is the subject of Cole's first book for children, Meaning Well. This story—suitable for children aged eight and older—is about a girl named Lisa and a quiet girl named Peggy. A loner, Peggy is the daughter of an alcoholic, and the story also seems to imply that she suffers from hearing loss. Though Lisa wants to befriend Peggy, her desire to have the popular, pretty Susan for a friend gets in the way. When Susan begins to taunt Peggy for being "weird," Lisa feels pressured to take Susan's side. The story ends sadly, but realistically, with Peggy moving away and Lisa never taking the important step of extending a friendship to a deserving girl and defying her selfish classmates. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that Cole's conclusion, "to the author's credit, is decidedly not a happy one."

Cole returns to the theme of the outsider in The Hen That Crowed, which takes place in the town of Bean Blossom, where no roosters are allowed because everyone likes to sleep late. When Farmer Goodhart buys a chick that grows up to be a cockle-doodle-doo-ing rooster, the kind-hearted farmer cannot bring himself to turn his rooster Charlene into chicken soup. Instead, he tries to fool the bird by putting a sack over its head and keeping the bird in a shed, but this plan proves less than successful. Goodhart's neighbors become increasingly testy, until one morning, when Charlene mistakes the light coming through a hole in the shed wall as the sun and vocalizes accordingly. The light is actually a fire, and Charlene's crowing alerts the townspeople into avoiding disaster. Naturally, the rooster becomes a hero. "A refreshing, inventive plot … make[s] this story something to crow about," asserted Ellen Fader in Horn Book.

In an interesting mix of fact and fiction is served up in the biographical novel The Dragon in the Cliff: A Novel Based on the Life of Mary Anning. A poor British girl growing up during the nineteenth century, Anning discovered some of the first dinosaur fossils ever uncovered. Her findings, however, only brought her ridicule. As Cole explained to SATA, "I was moved to write The Dragon in the Cliff by the condescending tone of something I read about Anning in a natural history magazine. It made me wonder what it was like for a poor girl with little education to make the momentous paleontological discoveries she did. How did she feel about her discoveries, the questions they raised, and the people they brought her into contact with? Since the only written record from that time comes from the gentlemen who used her discoveries to make their names in science, I had to make up her side of the story."

Using what researched facts she could find, Cole pieced together Anning's story, imagining what thoughts this bright but uneducated girl might have had. Beginning in the year 1812, before paleontology had even become a science, the story takes readers to the Dorset cliffs of England. Learning from her father how to dig for fossils, thirteen-year-old Mary continues to do so after her father dies, and the money she earns from selling the fossils—called "curiosities"—to tourists help support her family. When her discoveries—including the first icthyosaur ever uncovered—draw the attention of the scientific community, others take advantage of Mary and use her finds to advance their own reputations. An intelligent girl of low social status, Mary is rejected by the scientific community, as well as by a young geologist with whom she almost has a romantic relationship.

Most critics agreed that The Dragon in the Cliff is an engaging and well-researched historical novel that faithfully describes the world in which Mary lived. "Cole does a wonderful job of describing Anning's struggles to overcome the biases of the times, the English town in which she lived, and its prejudices," asserted School Library Journal contributor Cathryn Camper, who added that "by including the societal instigators of [Anning's] many problems—classism and sexism—Cole refuses to write down to her audience, or to simplify history." Anna K. Behrensmeyer, writing in Science magazine, maintained that "Cole gives her readers a lasting image of how intelligence, necessity, and determination combined to shape Mary Anning's life and give her a significant place in the history of paleontology." Booklist reviewer Candace Smith praised The Dragon in the Cliff as a "readable and enjoyable historical novel," noting that "Mary shines through as a spunky and believable heroine."

Cole takes on an even tougher story of rejection in her 1995 novel, What Kind of Love?: The Diary of a Pregnant Teenager. The author wrote this story in an attempt to better understand what it is like for young people to go through an unwanted pregnancy. "When I began my young adult novel What Kind of Love?," Cole recalled to SATA, "I couldn't understand how a girl could bring herself to give up her baby for adoption. The novel was my attempt to work out a plausible explanation of what might bring someone to do such a thing." The story's protagonist is Valerie Larch, a fifteen year old whose boyfriend Peter has gotten her pregnant, and by the time she decides abortion might be the way to go, her pregnancy has advanced too far. Her parents urge her to put the baby up for adoption, while Peter is banished to boarding school. Cole uses the device of a diary to get inside Valerie's thoughts over a six-month period as she goes through the adoption process. Valerie has the opportunity to pursue a possible career in music as a violinist, and she comes to think that giving up the baby will not only help her achieve her own potential, it is also the most responsible choice.

What Kind of Love? contains factual information ranging from frank discussions about sex and the discomforts of pregnancy to what is involved in putting a baby up for adoption and tips about how to childproof a
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home. "Quite often, these facts come adroitly camouflaged," remarked a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Cole, as Stephanie Zvirin observed in Booklist, manages to convey this information within an interesting story line: "Val's determination to hang on to her romantic vision … drives the story." Zvirin praised Cole's characterization and her ability to avoid "shrill preachiness." School Library Journal contributor Dona Weisman applauded the book's unresolved conclusion, maintaining that by not revealing whether Valerie will actually go through with the adoption, Cole compels readers "to relate to [Valerie's] dilemma and to ponder the consequences of her decision."

Also focusing on issues of personal choice, The Canyon takes readers to San Diego, where eleven-year-old Zach is shocked to find that a local nature area is planned as a site for a new housings development. Determined to fight these plans, he first tries to do battle in the press by starting a "Save the Canyon" movement. However, a friend's suggestion of an act of vandalism sets Zach on a course that causes him to cast aside his own values, and the sixth grader must eventually find a way to reconcile his actions with his belief in the ultimate cause.

Noting that Cole's story illustrated to readers how "corporations and politics … work as pieces of a larger whole," Booklist reviewer Susan Dove Lempke cited The Canyon for showing "how the persistence of a young person … can lead to success."

While Cole takes on complex issues in What Kind of Love? and The Canyon, she also uses simple stories to convey information to very young readers. When the Tide Is Low, for example, is a picture book about a little girl and her mother at the beach that helps teach children about sea life, while When the Rain Stops uses a similar approach to introduce youngsters to the sights and sounds of nature.

In addition to fiction, Cole has also written several non-fiction books for young readers, among them Working Kids on Working, a collection of interviews with working teens discussing their first job experiences, and To Be Young in America: Growing up with the Country, 1776–1940. Deemed "a rich resource for bringing history alive" by School Library Journal contributor Jane G. Connor, To Be Young in America follows the life of children over almost three centuries of U.S. history. Cole focuses on school, family life, and work, showing how wars, crime, and other shifts in the social and political landscape have altered the experiences of generations of American children from many cultures and regions. Connor cited Cole for doing "an exceptional job" in accumulating photographs and other source materials to enhance her text, and Booklist reviewer Jennifer Mattson praised "the book's blend of narrative and primary-source quotes and imagery."

Discussing the inspiration for To Be Young in America, Cole explained in OnceWritten.com that in her work on college-level child-psychology textbooks "the experts seemed to assume that whatever they found to be true of the children they studied had always been true for children and always would be." Looking at the young people she knows, "who believe that the way they live now—going to school six hours a day, being given an allowance, playing soccer with friends and computer games at home, is 'normal'—I realized that they might also be interested in finding out how different their lives might have been had they been born in another time." To Be Young in America "grew out of my habit of saying, 'Yes, but….' It suggests to me that sometimes exceptions are the rule, and that pursuing them can lead you to make some interesting discoveries."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 15, 1981, pp. 697-698; September 1, 1991, p. 60; March 1, 1991, Candace Smith, review of The Dragon in the Cliff: A Novel Based on the Life of Mary Anning, p. 1383; March 15, 1995, Stephanie Zvirin, review of What Kind of Love? The Diary of a Pregnant Teenager, p. 1322; August, 2002, Susan Dove Lempke, review of The Canyon, p. 1958; September 1, 2005, Jennifer Mattson, review of To Be Young in America: Growing up with the Country, 1776–1940, p. 108.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, April, 1995, p. 268.

Horn Book, April, 1981, pp. 202-203; June, 1993, Ellen Fader, review of The Hen That Crowed, p. 313.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 1974, p. 109; May 15, 1985, p. J25; May 1, 1991, p. 603; May 15, 2002, review of The Canyon, p. 729.

Publishers Weekly, May 27, 1974, review of Meaning Well, p. 65; March 15, 1993, p. 86; April 17, 1995, review of What Kind of Love?, p. 61.

School Library Journal, May, 1985, p. 71; September, 1991, Cathryn A. Camper, review of The Dragon in the Cliff, p. 250; January, 1992, p. 89; August, 1993, p. 140; May, 1995, Dona Weisman, review of What Kind of Love?, p. 118; June, 2002, Laurie von Me-hren, review of The Canyon, p. 134; October, 2005, Jane G. Connor, review of To Be Young in America, p. 184.

Science, April 16, 1993, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, review of The Dragon in the Cliff, pp. 376-377.