Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

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Phyllis Reynolds Naylor bigraphy, stories - American children's writer

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor : biography

04 January 1933 –

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (born January 4, 1933) is an American writer best known for children’s and young-adult fiction. Naylor is best known for her children’s-novel trilogy Shiloh (a 1992 Newbery Medal winner), Shiloh Season and Saving Shiloh, all made into movies. She is also known for her "Alice" book series; The Grand Escape, the short story collection The Galloping Goat and Other Stories; The Witch Saga; and a series of books, starting with The Boys Start the War, about boys and girls pulling pranks on each other. She is also known for her story Jade Green; A Ghost Story.

Biography

Naylor was born in Anderson, Indiana. She grew up during the Great Depression with her older sister Norma, and younger brother, John. Her parents read stories to her when she was young, and her favorite book as a child was Huckleberry Finn. She began writing her own stories when she was in elementary school. Naylor graduated from Joliet Township High School in 1951 and from Joliet Junior College in 1953. When she was 16 years old, a Sunday school teacher asked her to write a story for the church magazine. She wrote a baseball story named "Mike’s Hero" and was paid $4.67 for it. Her first marriage took place when she was 18 years old. After Naylor graduated school, she and her then husband moved to Chicago. Later, her husband suffered a mental disease and they got a divorce. She worked as a clinical secretary in a university hospital during that time. Later, she worked as an elementary school teacher and eventually got a job as an editorial assistant for a magazine.

The Galloping Goat and Other Stories

Naylor is also a founder of the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship, which annually rewards an author of children’s or young-adult fiction of literary merit to complete a manuscript.

Awards

  • Newbery Medal
  • Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Writers Award
  • Child Study Award
  • Kerlan Award
  • Christopher Award
  • Society of School Librarians International Award
  • Hedda Seisler Mason Award
  • Appalachian Medallion
  • About 25 State Awards
  • Various ALA Notables

Works

  • How I Came to Be a Writer
  • Crazy Love: An Autobiographical Account of Marriage and Madness
  • The Keeper
  • Night Cry
  • Collections
    • Grasshoppers in the Soup (1965)
    • The Galloping Goat and Other Stories (1965)
    • Knee Deep in Ice Cream (1967)
    • Dark Side of the Moon (1969)
    • The Private I, and Other Stories (1969)
    • Ships in the Night (1970)
    • Never Born a Hero (1982)
    • A Triangle Has Four Sides (1984)
  • What the Gulls Were Singing
  • Alice series
    • The Agony of Alice (1985)
    • Alice in Rapture, Sort of (1989)
    • Reluctantly Alice (1991)
    • All but Alice (1992)
    • Alice in April (1993)
    • Alice in-Between (1994)
    • Alice the Brave (1995)
    • Alice in Lace (1996)
    • Outrageously Alice (1997)
    • Achingly Alice (1998)
    • Alice on the Outside (1999)
    • The Grooming of Alice (2000)
    • Alice Alone (2001)
    • Simply Alice (2002)
    • Starting With Alice (2002) (prequel)
    • Alice in Blunderland (2003) (prequel)
    • Patiently Alice (2003)
    • Including Alice (2004)
    • Lovingly Alice (2004) (prequel)
    • Alice on Her Way (2005)
    • Alice in the Know (2006)
    • Dangerously Alice (2007)
    • Almost Alice (2008)
    • Intensely Alice (2009)
    • Alice in Charge (2010)
    • Incredibly Alice (2011)
    • Alice on Board (2012)
    • Always Alice (2013)