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Speaking for Ourselves, Too: More Autobiographical Sketches by Notable Authors of Books for Young Adults
Eighty-nine notable American and English authors of books for young adults describe their life and work.
235 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Donald R. Gallo
31 books17 followersDonald R. Gallo, often called the godfather of YA short stories, is the editor of more than a dozen acclaimed anthologies, including Sixteen, Destination Unexpected, First Crossing, and What Are You Afraid Of?. A former English teacher and professor, he began championing short stories written specifically for teens in 1980, addressing a gap in school curricula. His groundbreaking work has earned numerous accolades, including the ALAN Award for Outstanding Contributions to Young Adult Literature. Gallo now writes, edits, and presents workshops, while also enjoying photography, cooking, and travel from his home in Solon, Ohio.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 27, 2024
I haven't been able to get my hands on the first volume yet, but the follow-up is everything my little 20th-century-juvenile-lit-loving heart hoped it would be. The best part of reading a book like this today is seeing who was considered a "big name" in teen lit back in 1992-93 -- but not quite established or big enough to make the first list published in 1990 -- and the wildly varying degrees of their staying power.
Along with a whole bunch of obscure names, it includes such absolute giants as Ann M. Martin, R.L. Stine, Lois Lowry (at a time when The Giver was still her next "upcoming" book), Philip Pullman and Francine Pascal. Check out the table of contents on OpenLibrary -- how many do YOU know?
Personally, I recognized 49 of the 89 authors unprompted and another 16 by book titles after I looked them up, but there were plenty of new-to-me names as well (including Jamake Highwater, which, if you want a wild time, please go look him up on Wikipedia and read about THE SCANDAL).
Among the authors I've loved are Adler, Bauer, Betancourt, Block, Calvert, Cooney, Corcoran, Hobbs, Lowry, Naylor, Peyton, Pierce, Rinaldi, Speare, and Wolff, but I enjoyed nearly all of the 2-page mini-autobiographies whether I knew them or not, because they all had a different way of structuring their bio and interesting things to say. I especially liked those who included comments or insights on some of their specific books, or what drew them toward writing a certain genre or style.
Each bio also includes a list of their published books at the end, sorted by age group (middle grade vs. teen) -- in some cases only a "select" bibliography because they've published so many. I had SO much fun looking each author up on Goodreads afterward, because most of them continued to publish well past 1993, but Goodreads is also notorious for having limited information on 20th century books, so this helped form a more complete picture. Especially of publication dates...I could probably spend a week just adding those.
Long story short, this book gave me literally hours of entertainment and it will give me more in the future; I plan to buy a physical copy because I NEED to fill it full of notes, highlight favorite titles and quotes, check off which titles I'm interested in tracking down, add to the bibliographies until they're complete, etc. It's also a great starting point to further research the authors with little to no biographical or book information/reviews on the web, who may have been more extensively referenced in print resources for students once upon a time.
P.S. This book is actually about 30 pages longer than the page count because of a lengthy introduction explaining how the books were chosen, analysis of trends among the authors, how to use this as a resource, etc. It's all quite compelling, though my favorite part is when he explains why some authors you might have expected to see weren't in either volume. It turns into a callout that more or less reads like "except for Irene Hunt, who had a valid excuse, CERTAIN PEOPLE named Alice Bach, John Donovan, Margaret Mahy, John Neufeld, Meredith Ann Pierce, Christopher Pike, Daniel Pinkwater, Mildred D. Taylor, Rosemary Wells, Barbara Wersba, and Phyllis A. Whitney punked out and either ignored my calls or outright refused to participate."
Along with a whole bunch of obscure names, it includes such absolute giants as Ann M. Martin, R.L. Stine, Lois Lowry (at a time when The Giver was still her next "upcoming" book), Philip Pullman and Francine Pascal. Check out the table of contents on OpenLibrary -- how many do YOU know?
Personally, I recognized 49 of the 89 authors unprompted and another 16 by book titles after I looked them up, but there were plenty of new-to-me names as well (including Jamake Highwater, which, if you want a wild time, please go look him up on Wikipedia and read about THE SCANDAL).
Among the authors I've loved are Adler, Bauer, Betancourt, Block, Calvert, Cooney, Corcoran, Hobbs, Lowry, Naylor, Peyton, Pierce, Rinaldi, Speare, and Wolff, but I enjoyed nearly all of the 2-page mini-autobiographies whether I knew them or not, because they all had a different way of structuring their bio and interesting things to say. I especially liked those who included comments or insights on some of their specific books, or what drew them toward writing a certain genre or style.
Each bio also includes a list of their published books at the end, sorted by age group (middle grade vs. teen) -- in some cases only a "select" bibliography because they've published so many. I had SO much fun looking each author up on Goodreads afterward, because most of them continued to publish well past 1993, but Goodreads is also notorious for having limited information on 20th century books, so this helped form a more complete picture. Especially of publication dates...I could probably spend a week just adding those.
Long story short, this book gave me literally hours of entertainment and it will give me more in the future; I plan to buy a physical copy because I NEED to fill it full of notes, highlight favorite titles and quotes, check off which titles I'm interested in tracking down, add to the bibliographies until they're complete, etc. It's also a great starting point to further research the authors with little to no biographical or book information/reviews on the web, who may have been more extensively referenced in print resources for students once upon a time.
P.S. This book is actually about 30 pages longer than the page count because of a lengthy introduction explaining how the books were chosen, analysis of trends among the authors, how to use this as a resource, etc. It's all quite compelling, though my favorite part is when he explains why some authors you might have expected to see weren't in either volume. It turns into a callout that more or less reads like "except for Irene Hunt, who had a valid excuse, CERTAIN PEOPLE named Alice Bach, John Donovan, Margaret Mahy, John Neufeld, Meredith Ann Pierce, Christopher Pike, Daniel Pinkwater, Mildred D. Taylor, Rosemary Wells, Barbara Wersba, and Phyllis A. Whitney punked out and either ignored my calls or outright refused to participate."
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