Kate Seredy

Template:Short description

Template:Redirect Template:Infobox writer Kate Seredy (November 10, 1899 – March 7, 1975) was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. She won the Newbery Medal once, the Newbery Honor twice, the Caldecott Honor once, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. Most of her books were written in English, which was not her first language. Seredy seems to be unknown (and untranslated) in her native Hungary, despite the fact that her story of the Good Master, and the sequel set in World War I are intensely about Hungary.

LifeEdit

Kate Seredy was born on November 10, 1899Template:Efn in Budapest, Hungary.<ref name=dlb>Cech, John, Dictionary of Literary Biographies, Gale Research, 1983, Vol. 22.</ref>Template:Rp She was the only child of a schoolteacher, Louis Peter Seredy, and his wife, Anna Ireny. Seredy received a diploma to teach art from the Academy of Arts in Budapest. During World War I Seredy traveled to Paris and worked as a combat nurse. After the war she illustrated several books in Hungary.<ref name=dlb />Template:Rp

In 1922 Seredy moved from Budapest to the United States. She studied English language, working as an illustrator and artist to support herself, while preparing to illustrate children's books. From 1933 to 1934 Seredy owned a children's bookstore. Though the store wasn't a success, she later credited it with helping her understand children and what makes a good children's book. In 1935 Seredy met May Massee, the children's editor at Viking Press. Massee didn't have any illustration work for Seredy, but encouraged her to write about her childhood in Hungary, promising to publish the book for Christmas. After several months of work, Seredy submitted what would become The Good Master, which she also illustrated. Though not autobiographical, Seredy did spend her summers as a child on the plains of Hungary. She used many of her impressions and experiences in the story about young Kate, who is sent by her widowed father from Budapest to the country to live with her Uncle and his family.<ref name=dlb />Template:Rp The Good Master was named a Newbery Honor book in 1935, a runner-up to Caddie Woodlawn, which Seredy illustrated for Simon and Schuster. In addition she designed the jacket and endpapers for Young Walter Scott, which was another Newbery runner-up that year.<ref name=newbery>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1936 Seredy wrote and illustrated Listening, set in rural New Jersey. That same year she purchased, "Listening Hill", a one-hundred acre farm near Montgomery, New York. It was here that she wrote The White Stag, an historical retelling of the legends of Huns settling Hungary. Seredy learned these stories from her father when she was a child.<ref name="newbery" /> This book, which she also illustrated, won the Newbery Award in 1938.<ref name=newbery /> In 1959 it received the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award.<ref>Creighton, Sean and Cunningham, Sheila, Literary Laurels: A Reader's Guide to Award-Winning Children's Books, Hillyard, 1996, pp. 25–34</ref>

The Singing Tree appeared in 1939. A sequel to The Good Master, it tells of the effects of World War I on Kate and all of her family. The book shows the terrible effects of war on ordinary people, especially those who are forced to leave their lands and homes to fight. The Singing Tree was also named a Newbery Honor book.<ref name=newbery /> Seredy continued to write and illustrate her own books as well as those of other writers. In 1945 she illustrated The Christmas Anna Angel by Ruth Sawyer. When the Caldecott Honor list was created in 1971, Seredy was retroactively named an Honor winner for those illustrations.<ref name=cald>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Seredy had twelve children's books published, but she considered herself an illustrator before an author. She had a unique style, primarily based on drawing, and considered her books "an excuse for making pictures".<ref>Kate Seredy as illustrator Template:Webarchive</ref> Her last book, Lazy Tinka, is dedicated to her long-time editor, May Massee.

Kate Seredy died on March 7, 1975, in Middletown, New York, at the age of 75. Her papers and illustrations are held at the May Massee Collection at Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, and the University of Oregon Library.<ref name=20thC>Chevalier, Tracy (editor), Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, St. James Press, 1989, pp. 870;</ref>

WorksEdit

File:The Christmas Angel by ruth Sawyer cover, first edition.jpg

The Christmas Anna Angel
(later, Caldecott Honor cover)

Written and illustratedEdit

The Good Master, Viking Press, 1935 ^
Listening, Viking, 1936
The White Stag, Viking, 1937 +
The Singing Tree, Viking, 1939 ^
A Tree for Peter, Viking, 1941. Reissued Purple House Press, 2004, 2014.
The Open Gate, Viking, 1943
The Chestry Oak, Viking, 1948. Reissued Purple House Press, 2015.
Gypsy, Viking, 1951
Philomena, Viking, 1955
The Tenement Tree, Viking, 1959
A Brand New Uncle, Viking, 1961
Lazy Tinka, Viking, 1962

Selected illustrated booksEdit

Friendly Stories by Arthur I. Gates and Miriam Blanton Huber, Macmillan, 1930
The Pathfinder : Readings from Modern Literature by Lawton B. Evans, Macmillan, 1930
God our Father by Virgil George Michel and Basil Augustine Stegmann, Macmillan, 1934
The Prince Commands by Andre Norton (Norton's debut), D. Appleton–Century Company, 1934
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink, Macmillan, 1935 +
Common Sense for Mothers on Bringing up Your Children from Babyhood to Adolescence by Estelle Mulqueen Reilly, Funk & Wagnalls, 1935
Young Walter Scott by Elizabeth Janet Gray, Viking, 1935 ^
The Selfish Giant and Other Stories compiled by Wilhelmina Harper, David McKay, 1935
Winterbound by Margery Bianco, Viking, 1936 ^
Smiling Hill Farm by Miriam Evangeline Mason, Junior Literary Guild and Ginn and Co., 1937
An Ear for Uncle Emil by E.R. Gaggin, Junior Literary Guild and Viking, 1939
The Christmas Anna Angel by Ruth Sawyer, Viking, 1943 <
The Wonderful Year by Nancy Barnes, Junior Literary Guild and J. Messner, 1946 ^
Little Vic by Doris Gates, Viking, 1951
A Dog Named Penny by Clyde Robert Bulla, Ginn, 1955