Zuckerman, Linda

Personal

Born in New York, NY; married; husband an artist.

Addresses

Home and office—Portland, OR.

Career

Editor and author of books for children. Scholastic, New York, NY, editor of Four Winds Press imprint; Viking Junior Books, New York, NY, former editorial director ; Intervisual Communications, Los Angeles, CA, former editorial director; Harper and Row (now HarperCollins), New York, NY, executive editor, beginning 1984, editorial director of Browndeer Press imprint, 1992-99; editorial consultant, 1999—. Director, Pacific Northwest Children's Book Conference, beginning 1999.

Awards, Honors

Book Sense Children's Pick, 2006, for I Will Hold You 'til You Sleep.

Writings

I Will Hold You 'til You Sleep, illustrated by John J. Muth, Arthur A. Levine Books (New York, NY), 2006.

A Taste for Rabbit (middle-grade novel), Arthur A. Levine Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor of essays to periodicals, including Horn Book.

Sidelights

After working as a children's book editor for major New York City publishers for almost four decades, where books under her editorship earned several top awards, Linda Zuckerman has since turned to the other side of the publisher's desk and become an author. The picture book I Will Hold You 'til You Sleep pairs Zuckerman's rhyming, lullaby-like text with softly toned watercolor art by Jon J. Muth that a Publishers Weekly contributor praised as "emotionally astute." In School Library Journal, Judith Constandinides described the book's text as "gentle, [and] poetic," and a Kirkus Reviews writer dubbed I Will Hold You 'til You Sleep "the very model of an instantly beloved bedtime story."

Zuckerman turns to an older audience in her novel A Taste for Rabbit. Geared for middle-grade readers, the story posits a wintry world in which talking animals live, human-like, in two societies. For the scholarly rabbit Quentin, concerns mount when he learns that several rabbit families have disappeared from within the rabbit's secure fortress, called Stonehaven. Meanwhile, the foxes that live in nearby Foxboro are finding food scarce, and now the bushy-tailed foxes Harry and Isaac have decided to "monitor" the rabbit warren. Worried that rabbits are being conscripted by a corrupt government and sold for food to outsiders (such as foxes), Quentin and several rabbit friends decide to leave the safety of the fortress in order to avoid such a fate. As they gain aid from other animals—weasels, raccoons, and the like—the paths of rabbit and fox eventually cross. While they work together to solve the mystery of the vanishings, each begins to learn about the competing world of the other. Noting the "thought-provoking" elements in Zuckerman's allegory, which touches on politics, religion, concepts of justice, and relationships, School Library Journal critic Amy J. Chow wrote that the author's "language is eloquent and, at times, humorous" and her story sustains reader interest through suspense. While noting some problems with the novel's fictional world, Cara Chancellor recommended A Taste for Rabbit to fans of Brian Jacques' "Redwall" books, calling the novel "imaginative, sinister, and inspiring in turn." In Horn Book, Vicky Smith concluded that Zuckerman's "bold attempt to rewrite the talking-animal fantasy for the twenty-first century … is ultimately captivating bunny noir."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2007, Jennifer Mattson, review of A Taste for Rabbit, p. 56.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, January, 2008, April Spisak, review of A Taste for Rabbit, p. 230.

Horn Book, November-December, 2007, Vicky Smith, review of A Taste for Rabbit, p. 689.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2006, review of I Will Hold You 'til You Sleep, p. 971; September 15, 2007, review of A Taste for Rabbit.

Kliatt, November, 2007, Cara Chancellor, review of A Taste for Rabbit, p. 15.

Publishers Weekly, October 2, 2006, review of I Will Hold You 'til You Sleep, p. 61; October 29, 2007, review of A Taste for Rabbit, p. 57.

School Library Journal, October, 2006, Judith Constantinides, review of I Will Hold You 'til You Sleep, p. 132; November, 2007, Amy J. Chow, review of A Taste for Rabbit, p. 140.