Ruth Stiles Gannett
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Ruth Stiles Gannett Kahn (August 12, 1923 – June 11, 2024) was an American children's writer best known for My Father's Dragon and its two sequels—collectively sometimes called the My Father's Dragon or the Elmer and the Dragons series or trilogy.
Education
Gannett graduated from City and Country School in Greenwich Village, New York City, in the class of 1937. There, she recalled in 2012, "she benefited from being 'allowed and encouraged to write for fun' at certain times of the day".[1] She then attended the George School and Vassar College, graduating with an A.B. in chemistry in 1944.[2][3]
Early career
After graduating from Vassar, Gannett moved to Boston, where she worked at Boston General Hospital and then at the Massachusetts Radiation Laboratory. She then worked at a ski lodge, and afterward returned to live with her parents, which is where she completed work on her most defining work. In 1947 the year her seminal work was published she married Peter Kahn.[4]
Writing career
Gannett's first novel, My Father's Dragon, was published by Random House in 1948[2] and was a runner-up for the annual Newbery Medal recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution" to American children's literature. She wrote two more novels in that series, Elmer and the Dragon and The Dragons of Blueland. The books were illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannett, her stepmother,[3]Template:Efn and the typography was designed by her husband, H. Peter Kahn.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". They have been translated into fourteen languages.[5]
Gannett wrote two other short children's novels, The Wonderful House-Boat-Train (1949) and Katie and the Sad Noise (1961), illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg and Ellie Simmons.
Kirkus Reviews covered two of the books briefly, showing disappointment in both Gannett's and Eichenberg's work on the house-boat-train and unusual enthusiasm for Gannett's story in a starred review of The Dragons of Blueland.[6]
Personal life
Ruth Gannett married artist, art history professor,[7] and calligrapher H. Peter Kahn (1921–1997).[8] The couple had seven daughters and eight grandchildren at the time of Kahn's death.[7] She lived in Trumansburg, New York, close to Cornell University, where Peter Kahn was employed for forty years.[5][8] She is the great-granddaughter of Ezra Stiles Gannett.[9] She died on June 11, 2024, at the age of 100.[10]
Works
Template:Library resources box
- My Father's Dragon series
Sometimes called the "Elmer and the Dragons series", the three short novels were written by Ruth Stiles Gannett and illustrated by her stepmother Ruth Chrisman Gannett.[11]
- My Father's Dragon (Random House, 1948)
- Elmer and the Dragon (Random House, 1950)
- The Dragons of Blueland (Random House, 1951)
50th Anniversary omnibus edition: Three Tales of My Father's Dragon (Random House, 1998), Template:Catalog lookup link.[12]
- Other
- The Wonderful House-boat-train, illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg (Random, 1949), 63 pp. Template:LCCN
- Katie and the Sad Noise, illus. Ellie Simmons (Random, 1961), 61 pp. Template:Catalog lookup link
Gannett introduced the 1991 Yearling edition of Edith Nesbit's collection The Book of Dragons (Template:Catalog lookup link), later issued in the Looking Glass Library (2013, Template:Catalog lookup link).
Notes
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". Google Books. Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". With linked "List of books" in print by Scholastic.
- ↑ My Father's Dragon website entry on Gannett
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". "Portions of this article were originally published in The Ithaca Journal and Ithaca Times, November 6, 2008."
- ↑
"The Wonderful House-Boat-Train by Ruth Stiles Gannett" [1949].
"The Dragons of Blueland by Ruth Stiles Gannett" [1951].
Kirkus Reviews. Undated contemporary reviews. Retrieved September 23, 2014. - ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". "[A] man whose life was dedicated to art, especially the arts of fine printing and the handmade book. A prolific typographer, illustrator and book designer as well as a painter, the German-born artist was a member of the Cornell community for forty years."
- ↑ [1] Marilynn Munoz genealogy site, retrieved December 26, 2014
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ "Gannett, Ruth Chrisman, 1896–1979". Library of Congress Authorities (lccn.loc.gov). Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ↑ "Publisher description for Three tales of my father's dragon {...}". Library of Congress Catalog (catdir.loc.gov). Retrieved September 22, 2014.
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
External links
- Author biography from Random House
- Information on Ruth Stiles Gannett
- Script error: No such module "Gutenberg".
- Template:Internet Archive author
- Template:Librivox author
- Template:Isfdb name
- Template:LCAuth
- Template:Imdb name
- Ruth Chrisman Gannett at LC Authorities, with 16 records (mainly under 'Gannett, Ruth Chrisman' without '1896–1979', previous page of browse report)