nancy herself

by Erick Berry

Sweet story of young Nancy Kent, aspiring artist.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Allena Champlin Berry Best (January 4, 1892 -February 1974) was an American illustrator, author, and fashion designer.

She wrote under the names Erick Berry & Anne Maxon.

Allena Champlin grew up in Albany & studied at the Eric Pape School in Boston and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. After working as a commercial artist, she went to further her studies in Paris, and then travelled in West Africa. It was there that she met her second husband, the writer Herbert Best, who worked for the British Government. She illustrated all of his children’s books, and most of her own.

Erick Berry wrote or illustrated over 100 books. Her most notable titles were Winged Girl of Knossos, which she wrote and illustrated, and which was the recipient of a 1934 Newbery Honor award, and Apprentice of Florence and Garram the Hunter, a Boy of the Hill Tribes, which she illustrated and which were Newbery Honor winners in 1934 and 1931 respectively.

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an odd little book this was. I picked it up at a favorite used bookstore because it looked rather intriguing, and the price was right. At home, I realized that Erick Berry was the author of the Newbery Honor book The Winged Girl Of Knossos. Because of that, I expected the book to have more substance than it does, but it's really just a little tossed off collection of episodes in the life of a young woman named Nancy. Our heroine is a privileged girl who studies at an art college in an unnamed city (possibly Philadelphia?), chauffeured home to the suburbs each day with her wealthy father in his large car. There's no plot whatsoever, the characterization is perfunctory, no sense of place, yet it's not without a certain charm. It's written in a breezy offhand manner, and was lightly humorous. Erick Berry, I learned, is actually a woman who was also an illustrator. Presumably that's her work on the cover. So the art student experience may be somewhat autobiographical, in the setting at least; the stories themselves have a tendency to turn on absurd coincidences. The quality of the physical book - flimsy boards and thin yellowing pages -- also suggests that nobody at the time it was published thought that this piece of writing was anything other than light-weight and ephemeral.

One passage I found myself reading again and again wondering if my brain was playing tricks on me. Several students in Nancy's illustration class are commenting on her work for a magazine assignment:

"'You want a heavier darker group there, to hold down your values against the type on the page,' advised Elsie Dinsmore, seriously. His own work was solid with blacks."

Elsie Dinsmore??? His?

It's not until several pages later that the author explains that this is a male student by the name of E. Dinsmore, nicknamed Elsie by his classmates. I guess it's funnier to have the name tossed out there without explanation first.

[CindySR · Rating 1 out of 5]

A 1930s YA story about a high school class of artists, it is not for a 21st-century audience due to the attitude toward the AA population that prevailed at that time.

[June Komisar]

Used to read this book over and over as a child. Surprised to discover today that Erick Berry is really Evangel Allena Champlin Best. Perhaps this book gave me the courage to become an artist (but then I morphed into an architect). No rating because I last read this when I was perhaps 9 or 10.

[Oolookitty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining enough in parts, but even for the time period, this one is pretty racist.

[Abby Mace · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s no flow each chapter is a different little story. There’s no background all we know is that Nancy is an art student.

[Teresa Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book for 10 cents at a rummmage sale so, of course, had to buy it. It was a cute, simple book of a "modern" girl in art school... Well, modern in 1938 anyway :)