46) Lives of the Writers: Comedies, Tragedies (and What the Neighbors Thought)

Bibliography: Krull, Kathleen (Ill by Hewitt, Kathryn); Lives of the Writers: Comedies, Tragedies (and What the Neighbors Thought); Harcourt Brace & Company; San Diego, CA; 1994; 95 pages; ISBN 978-0-15-248009-9.

Plot:  Shakespeare wrote with a feather quill and ink; Emily Dickinson wrote with a fountain pen; Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote on a Yiddish typewriter. But what did such writers do when they weren't writing? What did Jane Austen eat for breakfast? What could make Mark Twain throw his shirts out the window? Why would Zora Neale Hurston punch a fellow elevator passenger? Lives of the Writers: Comedies, Tragedies (and What the Neighbors Thought) tells all that and more, including plenty about writing, how these writers viewed the world of literature—and how their neighbors viewed them.

In this companion to the highly praised Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neighbors Thought), Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt offer the inside scoop on twenty literary luminaries. Even famous writers are real people with odd habits, secret hopes, dismal failure, and wild successes; Lives of the Writers reveals it all with wit and style. (http://www.kathleenkrull.com/books.html)

Review:  This book is so interesting.  It contains information about some of the greatest authors in an easy to understand format.  It provides information that will help students working on school reports, or who are just interested in biography.  The facts will keep readers interested in each writer.  The drawings of each author are very detailed and visually pleasing.  Hewitt includes little pieces in each drawing that are discussed in the biography of each author.  The text covers authors that many students will be introduced to in junior high and high school.  The authors include Murasaki Shikibu, Miguel de Cervantes, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Hans Christian Anderson, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Carl Sandburg, E.B. White, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.  I absolutely loved reading the life stories of these writers and can’t wait to share this book with students in the future.

Genre: Nonfiction; Biography

Interest Level: age 9-12

Related Books:  Lives of Extraordinary Women: Rulers, Rebels (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull; Who Was Jackie Robinson? by Gail Herman; Who Was Pablo Picasso? by True Kelley.

Awards:

The 2011 Children’s Book Guild of Washington, DC – Nonfiction Award Winner for Body of Work

Author Information: http://www.kathleenkrull.com/author.html