• Happy 90th, Gloria Skurzynski! (Co-author of juvenile National Parks My

    From lenona321@yahoo.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 5 22:08:55 2020
    The author of more than 50 children's books and the winner of four
    American Library Association awards, she was born in Duquesne,
    Pennsylvania and now lives in Boise, Idaho.

    Besides the "National Parks Mystery" series with her daughter, Alane
    Ferguson, she's known for historical novels, her "Mountain West Adventure" series, and, after 1995, her "Virtual War Chronologs" series.

    http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/gloria-skurzynski/
    (Book covers)

    https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/skurzynski-gloria-1930
    (includes awards, booklist, and LONG article on her life and work)

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Skurzynski

    https://www.kirkusreviews.com/author/gloria-skurzynski/
    (11 Kirkus reviews)

    https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/50188.Gloria_Skurzynski
    (reader reviews)

    https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/bios/Skurzynski__Gloria
    (includes photo and LONG bio)

    Excerpt:

    ...Her first widely-acclaimed novel, What Happened in
    Hamelin (1979), concerns the classic pied piper folktale of Hamelin,
    Germany from the 13th Century, here told from the perspective of a
    former baker’s assistant named Geist and how he becomes the pied
    piper’s apprentice...With her interests in
    science and technology as well, Skurzynski has produced nonfiction
    books like Bionic Parts for People: The Real Story of Artificial
    Organs and Replacement Parts (1978) and Almost the Real Thing:
    Simulation in Your High-Tech World (1991). Her science fiction works
    includes novels like Cyberstorm (1995) and Virtual War (1997). Her
    latest nonfiction book, Are We Alone?: Scientists Search for Life in
    Space (2004), discusses the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
    (or SETI) program...

    https://www.mcelmeel.com/author/otherwritings/articles/skurzynski.html
    (a 1997 profile)

    Excerpt:

    On her brochure for author visits, Gloria Skurzynski quotes the old
    Chinese saying "May you live in interesting times." She has added,
    "Life is exciting!" `Skurzynski's enthusiasm for life and her thirst
    for sharing her enthusiasm has brought about more than two dozen
    books. Her investigations have taken readers from the Middle Ages to adventures in today's world to explorations of the future. A writing
    career that has spanned almost three decades has produced picture
    books, folktales, middlegrade adventure stories, nonfiction titles,
    and "futuristic" novels for young adults.

    Gloria Skurzynski says that she is different from many other writers
    for young people in two ways: "First, I didn't know I wanted to be a
    writer until I was a grown-up woman with five children. Second, I grew
    up in a home with very few books. When I was seven, and forced to stay
    in bed because of tonsillitis, a friend of my parents gave me a copy
    of Heidi--the first book I ever owned."

    (snip)

    http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/resources/ferguson
    (2004 interview with the author and her daughter)

    Her daughter is Alane Ferguson, novelist and mystery writer.

    http://alaneferguson.blogspot.com/
    (funny bit about Alane and Gloria and J.K. Rowling - to see it, look
    at the last third of the May 20th, 2010 entry)



    Lenona.

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