Cynthia Ryland was born on June 6, 1954, in Hopewell, Virginai. When her parents separated, she went to live with her grandparents and cousins in Cool Ridge, West Virginia, while her mother attended nursing school. It is this house that she wrote about in her first book, When I Was Young in the Mountains.
Most of Cynthia Rylant’s works are based on her young life in the Appalachian scenery of West Virginia.
She has worked as a college English professor and in a public library children’s department. It was in this library job that she first became exposed to children’s books. She had grown up reading mostly comic books, since there were no libraries or bookstores near her small town homes. Ms. Rylant believes that her lack of early exposure to children’s books actually enabled her to become a better children’s author. She claims it allowed her to develop a fuller imagination and saved her from being intimidated by expectations of “great” literature.
Cynthia Rylant’s style “has been described as unadorned, clear, and lyrical.” Critics laud Rylant for her straightforward approach, economic yet lyrical language, and ability to express powerful emotions with restraint. Her development of plot and characterization are exceptional in her novels. Her stories usually leave the reader feeling happy and full of love.
She has received much recognition for her work as a children’s author, most recently the ALSC Newbery Award for her 1992 novel, Missing May. Two of her picture books, When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982) and The Relatives Came (1986) received the ALSC Caldecott Award, and her 1986 novel, A Fine White Dust was named an ALSC Newbery Honor Book.
Cynthia Rylant currently resides with her 12-year-old son, Nate in Kent, Ohio.
Robert McCloskey is the author and illustrator of a number of award winning children’s picture books. Blueberries for Sal highlights a favorite pastime, picking blueberries, and One Morning in Maine focuses on daily life in Maine. McCloskey was able to capture the spirit of Maine because he and his family settled there after World War II. As a boy in Ohio, he was interested in music and inventing until high school when he decided on the artist’s life. McCloskey won a scholarship to the Vesper George Art School in Boston and then went on to the National Academy of Design in New York.
After making little headway as an artist, he began drawing and painting everyday life. His first Book, Lentil, was followed by Make Way for Ducklings, which was awarded a Caldecott Medal in 1941 and has become a classic. Robert McCloskey once said, “It is just sort of an accident that I write books, I really think up stories in pictures and just fill in between the pictures with a sentence or a paragraph or a few pages of words. After moving to an island home in Maine, he wrote three books set in Maine that received Caldecott honors within a nine year period.
Robert McCloskey died in 2003.