By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: November 27, 2011
Anjelica Shirley Carpenter
Angelica Shirley Carpenter is the author of many acclaimed biographies written for young people including Frances Hodgson Burnett: Beyond the Secret Garden, L. Frank Baum: Royal Historian of Oz, Robert Louis Stevenson: Finding Treasure Island, and Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass. She also edited In the Garden: Essays in Honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Carpenter is the founding curator of the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at California State University in Fresno.
Nicki Richesin: Thank you for agreeing to do this interview. I know our readers will be fascinated by your writing life. You have established an impressive career as a biographer of many beloved and celebrated children’s book authors including Frances Hodgson Burnett, L. Frank Baum, Robert Louis Stevenson and Lewis Carroll. How did you first begin writing your books?
Angelica Shirley Carpenter: I began about 1988 when my mother Jean Shirley retired and moved from St. Louis to live near me in Palm Springs, Florida. Mother had already published several biographies for children and she arrived in Florida with a good idea for a new one, about Frances Hodgson Burnett. Oh, and she wanted us to write this together. In St. Louis Mother had found and read The One I Knew the Best of All, Frances’ autobiography of her childhood, and she thought that it would make a good starting point. I was running a small public library at this time, and I knew that children still read and loved The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, so I agreed that Frances would make a good subject. We established that the only biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett for young people had been written by her daughter-in-law in 1965. It lacked illustrations and, worse, it omitted certain incidents that were embarrassing to Frances’ family, like her divorce and remarriage. So we decided to write a more accurate account of her life and to try to publish it with photographs and illustrations from her books.
Your mother Jean Shirley was your co-author on three of your books. Could you tell us about her influence on your life and how you collaborated together?
