Her husband spurred her on and even converted two adjacent closets in their apartment into a small writing studio where she could work. Giff had found her writing voice, and clearly had much more to say to the students she was addressing in her books; she had published 10 books by when she stopped teaching and decided to write fulltime. That change coincided with another new chapter, when she and her husband moved to Weston, Conn.
For years she often produced multiple titles annually, creating the Kids of the Polk Street School series and two spin-off series, and a number of humorous novels. Giff has said that she drew from personal memories for this story and that it took her four years to finish. The book received a Newbery Honor citation, the first of two that Giff would win.
In all, Giff produced more than books for young readers. But in addition to her writing, Giff combined her expertise and love of books to reach people in other ways, too. She served as educational consultant for Dell Yearling and Young Yearling Book and was an adviser and instructor to aspiring writers. A mentor to a generation of writers, she inspired everyone with her humor, positivity and friendship. She made everyone feel special.
Wikimedia Foundation. Newbery Medal — Awarded for Included is the date of first publication. The Newbery Honor is given to worthy runners up for the Newbery Medal, a higher honor.
Though the Newbery Honor… … Wikipedia. Patricia Reilly Giff. Main article: Pictures of Hollis Woods. Giff's series of children's books about the kids from Polk Street School has proven popular and won critical acclaim. The stories revolve around second-grade teacher Ms. Rooney and the students in her class, in particular perpetual troublemaker Richard Best nicknamed "Beast" , who is good at art but terrible at reading and Emily Arrow, who is good at math but also terrible at reading.
Some novels in the series also feature Emily's younger sister Stacy as the central character. The critical success of Lily's Crossing —winner of a Newbery Honor citation among other awards—encouraged Giff to pursue this same line of fiction in Nory Ryan's Song and its sequel, Maggie's Door. The former title takes place at the onset of the Irish Potato Famine in , and is a survival story related by twelve-year-old Nory Ryan. She lives with her family on the west-central coast on a subsistence-level farm; worried that they may be evicted any day and hoping their father will come back from sea with money to save them.
When the famine strikes, many families decide to immigrate to America, and the Ryans want to join these. A contributor for Publishers Weekly found that the novel "meticulously recreates" the Great Hunger, as the Potato Famine was also called. The same reviewer concluded, "vivid descriptions of the stench of failed crops and the foul-tasting food that keeps them alive will linger in readers' minds even after Nory's salvation is secured.
The novel also follows the adventures of Nory's friend, Sean, who becomes separated from the Ryans and must find his own passage to America. In All the Way Home, Giff brings together "two appealing young characters in this story of friendship, family and finding where one belongs," according to a contributor for Publishers Weekly.
Brick is sent to stay with a friend in Brooklyn when a fire destroys their apple crop in Loretta, the friend, is a nurse who years ago adopted a girl with polio, Mariel, from a hospital located near Brick's farm. Brick and Mariel slowly become friends, and when he voices a desire to return to his home area to help a friend harvest apples, Mariel encourages him and even decides to join him. Her one desire is to trace her birth mother, and for that she must return to the hospital where she contracted polio.
Reviewing the novel in Booklist, Ellen Mandel felt that Giff "delivers a memorable picture of s America" in this "tightly woven, inspirational story. Pictures of Hollis Woods, Giff's second Newbery Honor Book, takes place on Long Island, where talented but troubled preteen foster-child Hollis Woods—named after the section of Queens where she was discovered abandoned as an infant—begins to feel secure at the home of a retired art teacher.
Booklist reviewer GraceAnne A. DeCandido praised the novel as a "moving story about families, longing, and belonging," while in School Library Journal Jean Gaffney noted Giff's use of flashbacks that "slowly illuminate Hollis's life with one family who had hoped to adopt her and why this didn't happen. Another work of historical fiction, A House of Tailors, concerns thirteen-year-old Dina, a character based on the author's great-grandmother.
Upon her arrival, Dina is disappointed to learn that her uncle, a tailor, lives with his family in a cramped Brooklyn tenement, and that she must earn her keep by helping him with the business. According to School Library Journal critic Barbara Auerback, A House of Tailors "is rich with believable, endearing characters as well as excitement and emotion. Since she began her career as a children's author in the late s, Giff has enjoyed the writing process more In this novel, when Brick goes to live with a family friend in Brooklyn after fire destroys his family's orchard during the summer of , he puts his own problems in perspective when he meets upbeat polio victim Mariel.
Giff views her new enterprise, named The Dinosaur's Paw, as "a community that brings children and books together. DeCandido, review of Pictures of Hollis Woods, p.
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