Wiles, Deborah

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Wiles, Deborah

PERSONAL: Born in Mobile, AL; daughter of Thomas P. Edwards, Jr. (in the U.S. Air Force) and Marie Kilgore (a homemaker); married; children: Alisa, Jason, Zachary, Hannah. Education: Attended Jones County Junior College; Vermont College, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—Atlanta, GA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Harcourt Children's Books, 15 E. 26th St., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: Writer, journalist, and oral-history gatherer. Instructor in writing at Towson University, Lesley University, and Vermont College.

AWARDS, HONORS: American Library Association (ALA) Notable Children's Books citation, 2002, for Love Ruby Lavender; Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, New York Public Library, Once upon a World Children's Book Award, Simon Wiesenthal Center, all 2002, all for Freedom Summer; PEN/Phyllis Reynolds Naylor working-writer fellowship, 2004; Bank Street Fiction Award, Bank Street College of Education, and National Book Award finalist, National Book Foundation, both 2005, and Golden Kite Honor Award, Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, and E.B. White Read-Aloud Award, Association of Booksellers for Children, both 2006, all for Each Little Bird That Sings.

WRITINGS:

Freedom Summer, illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2001.

Love, Ruby Lavender, Harcourt, (San Diego, CA), 2001.

One Wide Sky: A Bedtime Lullaby, illustrated by Tim Bowers, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2003.

Each Little Bird That Sings, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2005.

Moves the Symphony True (originally serialized in the Boston Globe, 2005), Harcourt (New York, NY, 2007.

ADAPTATIONS: Love, Ruby Lavender was adapted as an audiobook, read by Judith Ivey, Listening Library, 2002; Little Bird and Moves the Symphony True were both adapted as audiobooks by Listening Library.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Hang the Moon, a children's historical book set in the 1960s, and End of the Rope, a novel that takes place during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, both for Harcourt.

SIDELIGHTS: Deborah Wiles reflects the spirit of the American South in several of her children's titles, such as Freedom Summer; Love, Ruby Lavender; and the award-winning Each Little Bird That Sings. As a child, Wiles spent many summers in Louin, Mississippi, and, according to a biography posted on her home page, she spent her time "watching the socks spin at the washerteria, visiting Mr. Jeff Simmon's grocery … plunking on the old upright piano in the unlocked Methodist church … and wandering the cemetery, hanging out with long-gone kin." In an interview for the Harcourt Web site, Wiles explained that most of her writing is geared for "the ten-year-old me." "My father was an air force pilot, so we moved all my young life," she added in her interview, "but Mississippi was home. I always longed for a home place, and it became Mississippi, the place where my father and mother were born, and where I did so much growing up."

Her first children's book, Freedom Summer, takes place in the South during 1964 and reveals how the enactment of the Civil Rights Act affects two young friends. The novel revolves around Joe, who is white, and his best friend, John Henry, who is black. Through Joe and John Henry, Wiles reveals how desegregation changes the lives of those living in segregation, honing in on their "real-live-boy feelings and behavior," according to a Horn Book critic. The novel also credibly portrays issues of racism in a way young readers can associate with. The Horn Book critic also noted that Wiles's "text, though concise, is full of nuance." Eunice Weech, reviewing Freedom Summer in School Library Journal, remarked upon the author's ability to engage readers through her characters, writing that the "use of simile and other colorful language … and a first-person conversational style help to develop readers' personal involvement with the characters."

Love, Ruby Lavender, published in 2001, was described as "witty and fast paced and … quirky" by School Library Journal critic Alice Casey Smith. In Love, Ruby Lavender, Wiles introduces readers to Ruby Lavender, a Halleululia, Mississippi, native who is entirely devoted to her grandmother, Miss Eula. The novel describes the powerful bond that exists between the two and details their many joint adventures, such as their exploit to save chickens that are about to be slaughtered. The story also deals with serious issues, such as the sudden death of Grandpa Garret, Ruby's grandfather and Miss Eula's husband. After the death of Grandpa Garret, Ruby is torn when Miss Eula decides to leave Halleululia to visit a newborn granddaughter in Hawaii. Ruby gains consolation from the letters Miss Eula sends, and her responses reflect her lessening melancholy. Ultimately, a new friend helps Ruby move beyond her loneliness. In a review of Love, Ruby Lavender, Frances Bradburn commented in Booklist that Wiles "has created a timeless story of life and death … and the reality that, regardless, 'life does go on.'"

The escapades of two hungry squirrels and three young boys camping outdoors are detailed in Wiles's picture book One Wide Sky: A Bedtime Lullaby. The squirrels take center stage in this work, which follows the pair and allow young readers to experience the joys of the outdoors. Wiles describes the events of the day while having readers count surrounding objects from one to ten. Shelle Rosenfeld noted in Booklist that "gentle prose counts up and then down in descriptive rhyming couplets, employing familiar images," while a Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked that Wiles pays "a fitting tribute to the pleasures of a perfect day."

With Each Little Bird That Sings, Wiles once again captures the charm of the South. The book's main character is quirky Comfort Snowberger, whose family owns a funeral home in Aurora County, Mississippi. Ten-year-old Comfort takes pride in the fact that she has attended 247 funerals and thinks that she is im-mune to the grief caused by death, that is, until death touches her personally. With the successive deaths of her Great-Uncle Edisto and Great-Great-Aunt Florentine, Comfort soon realizes that coping with personal tragedy is not as easy as it seems to observers. When she is caught in a flood with her cousin Peach and dog Dismay, Comfort must make a decision that shows her growing understanding about life and death. "Despite the setting and plot," noted a Kirkus Reviews critic, "the story is not morbid but is an original celebration of life." Likewise, a Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that Each Little Bird That Sings is a "funny book" that "mixes letters, news reports, recipes and lists … into fine narrative, making a difficult topic go down like lemonade at a picnic."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2001, Frances Bradburn, review of Love, Ruby Lavender, p. 1684; August, 2003, Shelle Rosenfeld, review of One Wide Sky: A Bedtime Lullaby, p. 1991.

Horn Book, May, 2001, review of Freedom Summer, p. 317.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2005, review of Each Little Bird That Sings, p. 237.

Publishers Weekly, January 27, 2003, review of One Wide Sky, p. 257; February 21, 2005, review of Each Little Bird That Sings, p. 175.

School Library Journal, February, 2001, Eunice Weech, review of Freedom Summer, p. 107; April, 2001, Alice Casey Smith, review of Love, Ruby Lavender, p. 152.