With my blunt, redheaded sleuth songbird Dinah Galloway now starring in six published mysteries, I feel I can now officially take my place in the ranks of children’s series authors. Now, Dinah’s not unruffled and glam like Nancy Drew. Nor is she versed in magic à la Harry Potter – though just watch her make Purdy’s peanut butter chocolates vanish in a blink.
I’ve waited in vain for the postie to deliver a special membership card to this special cadre of writers. You know, The bearer of this card is an official Serial Flake, or something like that. In lieu of receiving that honor, I decided to investigate just who started children’s series.
Click your heels three times, and the answer is … L. Frank Baum, the actor-turned—farmer-turned journalist who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Raised by a Pennsylvania oil baron, Baum enjoyed an idyllic childhood on his Eden-like family estate, Rose Lawn. While a newspaper editor in South Dakota, he wrote Oz, basing Dorothy’s parched, gray surroundings on the Midwest drought of the time. I’m guessing Rose Lawn was his inspiration for her Over the Rainbow escape from the drought.
Fiona Bayrock interviewed me, along with Pam Withers and Deborah Hodge, about series books in an article for Children’s Writers and Illustrators 2010.