Marguerite Henry

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Marguerite Henry
picture books
Notable works
Notable awardsNewbery Medal
1949
SpouseSidney Crocker Henry

Marguerite Henry (

Misty
.

Biography

Born to Louis and Anna Breithaupt, the youngest of five children, Henry was a native of

Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[2][6] Henry was stricken with rheumatic fever at the age of six, which kept her bedridden until the age of twelve. She was unable to attend school with other children due to her weak condition and the fear of spreading the illness to other people. While confined indoors, she discovered the joy of reading.[citation needed] Henry's love of animals started during her childhood. Soon afterwards, she also discovered a love for writing when her parents presented her with a writing desk for Christmas. Henry later said, "At last I had a world of my very own – a writing world, and soon it would be populated by all the creatures of my imagination."[7]

Henry sold her first story at the age of 11. The Delineator (a popular women's magazine) had solicited articles about the four seasons from children, and she was paid $12 (now about $250) for "Hide-and-Seek in Autumn Leaves".[1] She often wrote about animals, such as dogs, cats, birds, foxes, and mules, but chiefly her stories focused on horses.

She studied at

Milwaukee State Teachers College.[8]
After graduation she traveled to Wisconsin's North Woods with her family and met a traveling salesman from Sheboygan, Sidney Crocker Henry. On May 5, 1923, Marguerite married Sidney Henry in Milwaukee.[2] The couple moved to the north side of Chicago where Marguerite launched her writing career by writing for magazines.[9] During their 64 years of marriage they did not have any children, but instead had numerous pets that served as the inspiration for some of Marguerite's stories. They lived in Wayne, Illinois.

In 1945, Henry began a 20-year collaboration with artist Wesley Dennis. "I had just finished writing Justin Morgan Had a Horse," she recalled, "and wanted the best horse artist in the world to illustrate it. So I went to the library, studied the horse books, and immediately fell in love with the work of Will James and Wesley Dennis. When I found out that Will James was dead, I sent my manuscript to Wesley Dennis."[10] Henry and Dennis eventually collaborated on nearly 20 books.

Misty of Chincoteague was published in 1947 and was an instant success. In 1961, it was

adapted for television as Peter Lundy and the Medicine Hat Stallion
in 1977.

Henry's last book was Brown Sunshine of Sawdust Valley, a 93-page novel published in September 1996, when she was 94 years old. Kirkus Reviews called it "Vintage Henry ...a lighthearted version of the old girl-meets-horse story; only this time, the horse is a mule."[11]

She died on November 26, 1997,[6] at home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, after multiple strokes.[4]

Legacy

Misty features the annual Pony Penning of feral horses from Assateague Island, a two-day round-up, swim, and auction that Henry had been "sent to look at" by her hopeful editor, Mary Alice Jones.[12] She created several Misty-related titles including two more children's novels illustrated by Dennis, Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague (1949) and Stormy, Misty's Foal (1963). The beneficiaries of "Marguerite Henry's Legacy", as a Washington Post editorial termed local tourism, were the Assateague nature preserve and Chincoteague town.[12] Within her lifetime Pony Penning itself drew about 25,000 visitors[12] and their number was 40 to 50,000 according to a local estimate ten years later.[13] In 2023 the Museum of Chincoteague raised donations to purchase the Beebe Ranch—the location where Misty was born in 1946.

Awards

Henry won the annual

Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Juvenile Book and the 1970 Sequoyah Book Award.[15][17]

Works

Auno and Tauno by Marguerite Henry

Pictured Geography

Albert Whitman and Company of Chicago published the Pictured Geography series in the 1940s. Four sets of eight 28-page

children's picture books about world nations and other territories were illustrated by Kurt Wiese. Henry wrote the texts for the first and fourth sets.[19] At least one library catalog record indicates a "preschool" audience.[20] Kirkus Reviews observed in a brief contemporary positive review of the fourth series, "Third and fourth graders will find this a pleasant way to expand the confines of school geographies."[21]

Bernadine Bailey wrote the second, 1942 series; Lois Donaldson the third, 1944 series.[19] The Virgin Islands volume was reviewed briefly in the "New Biological Books" section of The Quarterly Review of Biology: "A brief account of the historical, economic, and geographical features of the Virgin Islands. The illustrations are not particularly attractive to the reviewer, but the text should serve to introduce children to this little-known possession of the United States."[24]

See also

Notes

  1. National Sporting Library hosted an exhibition of work by Wesley Dennis late in 2001. According to a contemporary biographical sketch by one NSL librarian, Dennis was in New Mexico c. 1940 "to gather material for a book idea he called Brighty of the Grand Canyon". By chance he met the children's book editor May Massee there, which proved to be a crucial breakthrough in his career.[25]

References

  1. ^ a b "Marguerite Henry". Misty of Chincoteague Foundation. Retrieved 2015-01-26.
  2. ^ a b c "Marguerite Henry". Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004.
  3. ^ "Juvenile Books Author of the Month: Marguerite Henry". Greenville Public Library (Greenville, RI). Retrieved 2015-01-26.
  4. ^ a b Mooar, Brian. " Misty' Author Marguerite Henry Dies at Age 95". The Washington Post. November 27, 1997. Page C7. Quote: "died Nov. 26 at her home in Rancho Santa Fe".
      Lead paragraphs at HighBeam Research (highbeam.com); full text available by subscription.
  5. ^ a b Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922–Present. Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). American Library Association (ALA).
      "The John Newbery Medal". ALSC. ALA. Retrieved 2013-08-29.
  6. ^ a b "Marguerite Henry, 95, Author Of the 'Chincoteague' Series". Wolfgang Saxon. The New York Times. November 29, 1997. Page A13.
  7. ^ Marguerite Henry, Dear Readers and Riders, Rand McNally, 1969, p. 200.
  8. ^ Newbery Medal Books: 1922–1955, eds. Bertha Mahony Miller, Elinor Whitney Field, Horn Book, 1955, LOC 55-13968, p. 322.
  9. ^ Friedland, Susan (2023). Marguerite, Misty and Me: A Horse Lover's Hunt for the Hidden History of Marguerite Henry and Her Chincoteague Pony. Chicago: Saddle Seeks Horse Press. pp. 33–34.
  10. ^ Marguerite Henry, Dear Readers and Riders, New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1969, p. 207.
  11. ^ "Brown Sunshine of Sawdust Valley". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2015-02-16.
  12. ^ a b c "Marguerite Henry's Legacy".
  13. ^ Chincoteague Beachcomber. "Pony Penning Wed., Thurs.", July 25, 2008, p. 2.
  14. ^ "William Allen White Children's Book Award: Past Winners" Archived 2010-05-28 at the Wayback Machine. Emporia State University (emporia.edu).
  15. ^ a b "Children's Sequoyah Winners". Oklahoma Library Association. Retrieved January 31, 2015.
  16. ^ "Award Winners from Prior Years" Archived 2019-01-20 at the Wayback Machine. The Society of Midland Authors.
  17. ^ "Western Heritage Award Winners" (database interface). National Cowboy Museum.
  18. ^ Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series: 1974: July-December. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, 1976. 1976. p. 5161.
  19. ^ a b "Search results for 'Pictured Geography Kurt Wiese' ". WorldCat. Retrieved 2015-01-30.
      Whitman, Wiese, and Bailey also produced a long series of U.S. state picture books entitled Picture book of Alabama and so on. See items 7 to 46 in this listing.
  20. OCLC 1666590
    . WorldCat. Retrieved 2015-01-30.
  21. ^ "Pictured Geography Series". Kirkus Reviews. Undated reprint. Retrieved 2015-02-14.
  22. ^ Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series: 1946. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. 1947. pp. 301–02. Google e-Book retrieved 2015-01-26.
  23. ^ "Kurt Wiese and the Kangaroo: A Fortunate Internment Story". Irmtraud Petersson. Overland 126 (1992). pp. 50–53. Reprint at Academia.edu retrieved 2015-01-26.
  24. JSTOR 2810799
    . Retrieved 2015-01-30 (subscription may be required or content may be available in libraries).
  25. ^ "Inspired Animation: The Art of Wesley Dennis". Lisa Campbell. The National Sporting Library Newsletter. Fall 2001.
    National Sporting Library (nsl.org). Reprint
    . Archived 2011-09-30. Retrieved 2015-01-28.
      This is a substantial biography associated with a 2001 exhibition at the affiliated art museum of drawings and paintings lent by Morgan, son of Wesley Dennis. Morgan Dennis then was or had been manager of the Middleburg Tennis Club. The institution became the National Sporting Library & Museum prior to the archive date.
Citations

External links

Library resources about
Marguerite Henry
By Marguerite Henry
Film adaptations
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