Charlotte Zolotow was – still is – a significant factor in my writing life. In the early 1970s (as an undergraduate) I sent her a fan letter regarding WILLIAM'S DOLL. She wrote back. Alas, I lost track of that letter years ago.
I met her face-to-face in 1978 when I was on the Notable Children's Book Committee of ALA. My campaign for Goffstein's MY NOAH'S ARK brought an invitation to dine with Charlotte, Bill Morris [the head of the Library Promotion Department at Harper & Row, later to become HarperCollins], and others. I remember sitting at dinner as Charlotte described a "marvelous new manuscript" that Arnold Lobel had just delivered. It was FABLES. She also taught me how to eat an artichoke! By late 1979, I was working with editor Susan Hirschman, but I usually visited Charlotte when I was in New York. Bill, too. It was in 1985 that she accepted my YA novel, UNLIVED AFFECTIONS. Long gone are the days when an editor would and could spend as much time guiding me through revisions as she did. I was very lucky.
In 2004, when TIPPY-TOE CHICK, GO! was selected as a Zolotow Honor Book, I had a lovely sense of closing the circle.
In 2004, when TIPPY-TOE CHICK, GO! was selected as a Zolotow Honor Book, I had a lovely sense of closing the circle.
I am looking forward to exploring Charlotte's books on my blog. Barbara Bader's paragraph in FROM NOAH'S ARK TO THE BEAST WITHIN regarding THE PARK BOOK remains a pivotal point of awareness for me. And thanks to Charlotte's longevity, her manuscripts provide a rich look at how a single text can be illustrated and then re-illustrated in both a different style and a different period of time.
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