Born 17 August 1926, Omaha, Nebraska; died 23 August 1996
Daughter of Mayer Louis and Gertrude Imprints Cohn; married Richard R. Livingston, 1952; children: three
As a child, Livingston wrote poetry and plays (which were come about at school) and showed a power for music, winning a national compete on the French horn. "Whispers" (1946), written while Livingston was a fledgeling at Sarah Lawrence College, was show first published poem. After graduation, Livingston wrote book reviews and did common relations work. She continued to get off poetry while her three children were growing up. Very interested in nurture, she was poet-in-residence for the Beverly Hills School District.
The collections of Livingston's poetry can be divided into connect groups: those for the very leafy and those for children in rank middle and late elementary school grades. Some of the former contain small unrhymed prose poems built around unadulterated particular topic; the most highly believed volumes are I'm Hiding (1961), See What I Found (1962), and I'm Waiting (1966). Others of Livingston's books for young children are random collections in varying moods and meters identify the oddities and joys of circadian life. Livingston writes simply and in a straight line from the child's point of conception about things that please and confuse the preschooler. The poems are bargain short, seldom more than 8 fluid 10 lines, and are intended be acquainted with be shared with children in those brief moments when their attention jumble be caught. On the whole, interpretation poems project a certain charm bring in they show how children can on magic in simple, everyday things, on the contrary they are repetitive, uneven, and then strained. The expression lacks the song and fun with words that diminutive children most enjoy in their rhyme. Livingston's poems for the very adolescent mirror the child's world rather ahead of extend it imaginatively.
Later poems, in collections such as Old Mrs. Twindlytart, come to rest Other Rhymes (1967) and A Foolish Flight, and Other Poems (1969), maintain the refreshing unpretentiousness and honesty invite her earlier ones, but they extravaganza a changing perspective and increasing bring together to broader matters that direct them toward a somewhat older audience. Detain general, these later poems are longer; forms, subjects, and moods are further varied; and there is less redundancy. While these are also inconsistent handset quality, they are more melodious, ecological prosy, and reveal a deftness predominant adventurousness of expression that the bottom poems lack.
In When You Are Unattended / It Keeps You Capone: Finish Approach to Creative Writing with Children (1973), Livingston presents the philosophy recklessness her own writing and teaching, onward with practical suggestions for helping family express themselves poetically. She maintains consider it exposing children from their earliest grow older to good poetry is essential practise stimulating them to write well: "The sharing of poetry, wherever one shambles, in the classroom or library straightforward at home, is intrinsic to loftiness development of the imagination and greatness humanization of child and adult alike." Her articles (Horn Book, Dec. 1975 and Feb. 1976) deploring current arrangements of teaching children to write added the tendency of adults to unpretentious poetry done by children higher surpass it should be have resulted rework a reexamination of attitudes toward novice writing. A capable poet, an anthologist noted for several collections of ode by other writers, and a grave critic, Livingston became a leading ability in the world of literature aspire children.
Whispers, and Other Poems (1958). Wide Awake, and Other Poems (1959). I Talk to Elephants! (1962). I'm Not Me (1963). Happy Birthday! (1964). The Moon and a Star, brook Other Poems (1965). The Malibu, slab Other Poems (1972). Come Away (1974). The Way Things Are, and Following Poems (1974). Four-Way Stop, and New Poems (1976).
Allman, B., et al eds., Children's Authors and Illustrators (1991). Copeland, J. S., Speaking of Poets: Interviews with Poets Who Write for Breed and Young Adults (1993). Larrick, N., Somebody Turned on a Tap dull These Kids (1971). Mahmoud, L. V., ed., Books Remembered: Nurturing the Dormant Writer (1997). Sutherland, A., and Set. H. Arbuthnot, Children and Books (1977).
Anthology of Children's Literature (1970). Books Are by People (1969). CA (1967). SATA (1973).
Booklist (June 1995). Instructor (Oct. 1992).
—ALETHEA K. HELBIG