Eleanor Estes (May 9, 1906 – July 15, 1988) was an American

children's writer Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...

and a children's

librarian A librarian is a person who professionally works managing information. Librarians' common activities include providing access to information, conducting research, creating and managing information systems, creating, leading, and evaluating educat ...

. Her book '' Ginger Pye,'' for which she also created illustrations, won the

Newbery Medal The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contr ...

. Three of her books were

Newbery Honor The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contr ...

Winners, and one was awarded the

Lewis Carroll Shelf Award The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award was an American literary award conferred on several books by the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education annually from 1958 to 1979. Award-winning books were deemed to "belong on the same shelf" as ''Al ...

. Estes' books were based on her life in small-town

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

in the early 1900s.

Life

Eleanor Estes was born Eleanor Ruth Rosenfield in

West Haven, Connecticut West Haven is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, located on the coast of Long Island Sound. The city is part of the South Central Connecticut Planning Region, Connecticut, South Central Connecticut Planning Region. At the 2 ...

. She was the third child of father Louis Rosenfeld, a bookkeeper for a railway, and mother Caroline Gewecke Rosenfeld, a seamstress and story teller. Estes's father died when she was young and her mother's dressmaking provided for the family. Eleanor Estes attributes her love of reading, children's literature, and storytelling to her parents' fondness for books and her mother's "inexhaustible supply of songs, stories, and

anecdote An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Anecdotes may be real ...

s, which she entertained us with while cooking dinner." In 1923, after graduating from West Haven High School, she trained at the New Haven Free Library, and became a children's librarian there.Cech, John (editor), ''American Writers for Children, 1900–1960'', Gale Research, 1983 In 1931, Estes won the Caroline M. Hewins scholarship for children's librarians, which allowed her to study at the Pratt Institute library school in New York."Eleanor Estes Papers"
''University of Minnesota library'' In 1932 she married fellow student Rice Estes. They both worked as librarians throughout New York, and he later became a professor of library science and the head of the Pratt Institute Library.
''University of Southern Mississippi'' library Estes worked as a children's librarian in various branches of the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

, until 1941. Estes began writing when tuberculosis left her confined to her bed. Her best known fictional characters, the Moffats, live in Cranbury, Connecticut, which is Estes’ hometown of West Haven. She based the Moffats after her family, including patterning younger daughter Janey after herself, and basing Rufus on her brother, Teddy. The Esteses had one child, Helena, born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

in 1948, where Rice Estes was assistant librarian at the University of Southern California. In 1952 they moved back east and worked as librarians. Estes also taught at the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant coll ...

Writer's Conference. Eleanor Estes died July 15, 1988, in Hamden, Connecticut. Her papers are held at the

University of Southern Mississippi The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bac ...

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, and the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...

. She wrote 20 books.

The Hundred Dresses

Estes’s book ''The Hundred Dresses'' was a Newbery Honor Book in 1945. It spoke about the bullying of children based on their races and their nationalities. The book is about a young Polish girl named Wanda Petronski who is bullied by her classmates for her unusual Polish name and the blue dress she wears every day. Wanda claims to have a hundred dresses at home and her classmates don’t believe her. After being pulled out of school by her father, Wanda wins a school art contest for her one hundred drawings of dresses. Her classmates felt regret about bullying her when they realized that it was their own faces drawn in the design of dresses by Wanda. Estes based the book on an incident from her own childhood, to atone for staying silent when a peer was bullied.

Awards

* Newbery Medal, 1952 – ''Ginger Pye'' * Newbery Honor Books – ''The Middle Moffat, Rufus M., The Hundred Dresses'' * Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, 1961 – ''The Moffats'' * Certificate of Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Literature, 1968 * Pratt Institute Alumni Medal, 1968Chevalier, Tracy (editor), ''Twentieth-Century Children's Writers'', St. James Press, 1989,; * Laura Ingalls Wilder Award Nominee, 1970

Reception

According to reviewer Carolyn Shute, Estes had the "ability to distill the very essence of childhood."

Anita Silvey Anita Silvey is an American author, editor, and literary critic in the genre of children’s literature. Born in 1947 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Silvey has served as Editor-in-Chief of ''The Horn Book Magazine'' and as vice-president at Hou ...

said she possessed a "rare gift for depicting everyday experiences from the fresh perspective of childhood."Silvey, Anita (editor), ''The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators'', Houghton Mifflin, 2002, pg. 144; Estes is primarily recognized as a writer of family stories, and as one who "shaped and broadened that subgenre's tradition", primarily through her "seemingly artless style". Eleanor Cameron, in an article for

The Horn Book Magazine ''The Horn Book Magazine'', founded in Boston in 1924, is the oldest bimonthly magazine dedicated to reviewing children's literature. It began as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietors of t ...

, included Estes' Moffat books among "those that sit securely as classics in the realm of memorable literature".Cameron, Eleanor, ''McLuhan, Youth, and Literature: Part III'', The Horn Book Magazine, February, 1973;

Works

*''

The Moffats ''The Moffats'' is the first in a series of four children's novels by American author Eleanor Estes. It tells the story of four young children and their mother who live in a small town in Connecticut. Their adventures are based on Estes' memo ...

'' (1941) – Awarded the

*'' The Middle Moffat'' (1942) – Newbery Honor *''The Sun and the Wind and Mr. Todd'' (1943) *'' Rufus M.'' (1943) – Newbery Honor *'' The Hundred Dresses'' (1944) – Newbery Honor *''The Echoing Green'' (1947) *''Sleeping Giant and Other Stories'' (1948) *'' Ginger Pye'' (1951) – Winner of the

*''A Little Oven'' (1955) *'' Pinky Pye'' (1958) *''The Witch Family'' (1960) *''Small but Wiry'' (1963) *''The Alley'' (1964) *''The Lollipop Princess'' (1967) *''Miranda the Great'' (1967) *''The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode'' (1972) *''The Coat-Hanger Christmas Tree'' (1973) *''The Lost Umbrella of Kim Chu'' (1978) *'' The Moffat Museum'' (1983) *''The Curious Adventures of Jimmy McGee'' (1987)

References

;Sources
Book Web Help page
*

External links

Eleanor Estes
at

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

Authorities—with 42 catalog records *
Eleanor Estes Papers at the University of Connecticut
{{DEFAULTSORT:Estes, Eleanor 1906 births 1988 deaths American children's writers Librarians from Connecticut American women librarians Newbery Honor winners Newbery Medal winners People from West Haven, Connecticut Pratt Institute alumni University of New Hampshire faculty 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers Novelists from Connecticut American women academics