LENSKI, Lois

Born 14 October 1893, Springfield, Ohio; died 11 September 1974, Florida

Daughter of Richard and Marietta Young Lenski; married Arthur S. Covey, 1921; children: three

Fourth of the five children of a Lutheran minister, Lois Lenski received a B.S. in education from Ohio State University in 1915, although she never taught. She enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City, and in 1920 went to the Westminster School of Art in London. With her husband, a muralist and former teacher, Lenski brought up two stepchildren and their own son, Stephen, in a small Connecticut town. After her health broke down, they lived at least part of the year in Florida.

Lenski entered the world of children's books as an illustrator. She illustrated 57 books for others. Not until 1927, with Skipping Village, a novel about her childhood, did Lenski begin her extraordinarily prolific career as both writer and illustrator of historical and regional books for children. She won the Newbery Medal for Strawberry Girl (1945) in 1946 and the Child Study Association Book Award for Judy's Journey (1947).

Lenski's many children's books can be grouped into age categories as well as types. The picture books for preschoolers fall into two series, the Small Family books, beginning with The Little Auto (1934), in which Mr. Small masters various forms of locomotion and several professions, and the Davy books, beginning with Davy's Day (1943), which depict the mundane experiences of a small boy.

Lenski's seven novels dealing with "childlife of the past" begin with Phebe Fairchild, Her Book (1936). They are written for the same nine-to twelve-year-old group for which she writes her regional novels. For the regional series, of which Bayou Suzette (1943) is the first, Lenski adopted the methods of the anthropologist: she traveled extensively and made on-site verbal and graphic documentation of the lives of particular children in out-of-the-way corners of the U.S.

A later series, Roundabout America, is aimed at seven-to nine-year-olds. These books are short novels or collections of short stories such as We Live in the South (1952) or We Live in the City (1954). While the regional books deal mainly with white, rural children, including migrant workers, the later series moves into both urban slums and Native American reservations.

Lenski's strength as a children's writer, her true originality and influence, lies in her dedication to "documentary realism": she sought out and recorded both the hardships and joys of ways of life outside the mainstream of middle-class American existence. Lenski often responded to direct appeals from children to "come write about us"; she thus satisfied needs for attention and recognition not previously filled by children's literature.

Lenski's books signal the beginning of a trend toward the realistic problem novel in children's literature, a trend which has probably since been abused. Lenski, however, was a true innovator and a careful craftswoman. She wrote in clear and simple language and was interested in dialects, trying to make speech patterns as authentic as possible in her dialogue. She also recognized the fascination of children with the world of work and economic survival.

In language and character development, Lenski's books appear somewhat one-dimensional and, read as a corpus, they are surprisingly formulaic. Solutions to serious struggles and conflicts that Lenski depicts are circumstantial rather than the result of realistic development and change in the child characters themselves. These solutions sometimes seem childishly simplistic, not unlike her deliberately simple line illustrations. Such, for instance, is the sudden revivalist conversion of a drunken and belligerent father in Strawberry Girl. Her interest in recording often brings out vividly the special suffering of women and children in harsh environments, but does not suggest rebelling against very traditional roles.

Lenski's books remain immensely popular with children and in many ways justifiably so. But their enduring value seems finally somewhat extraliterary: her works are sympathetic and, at their best, vivid portrayals of hard, obscure, yet intrinsically interesting ways of life, emphasizing, within socioeconomic and cultural differences, similarities in the needs and wishes of children to be recognized and cherished—and to wring some pleasure out of life.

Other Works:

Jack Horner's Pie (1927). Alphabet People (1928). A Little Girl of Nineteen Hundred (1928). Two Brothers and Their Animal Friends (1929). The Wonder City, Picture Book of New York (1929). Spinach Boy (1930). Two Brothers and Their Baby Sister (1930). The Washington Picture Book (1930). Benny and His Penny (1931). Grandmother Tippytoe (1931). Arabella and Her Aunts (1932). Johnny Goes to the Fair, a Picture Book (1932). The Little Family (1932). Gooseberry Garden (1934). Surprise for Mother (1934). Little Baby Ann (1935). Sugarplum House (1935). The Easter Rabbit's Parade (1936). A-Going Westward (1937). Baby Car (1937). The Little Sailboat (1937). Bound Girl of Cobble Hill (1938). The Little Airplane (1938). Oceanborn Mary (1939). Susie Maria (1939). Blueberry Corners (1940). The Little Train (1940). Animals for Me (1941). Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison (1941). The Little Farm (1942). Let's Play House (1944). Puritan Adventure (1944). Spring Is Here (1945). Blue Ridge Billy (1946). The Little Fire Engine (1946). Surprise for Davy (1947). Boom Town Boy (1948). Mr. and Mrs. Noah (1948). Now It's Fall (1948). Cotton in My Sack (1949). Cowboy Small (1949). Texas Tomboy (1950). I Like Winter (1950). Papa Small (1951). Prairie School (1951). Peanuts for Billy Ben (1952). We Are Thy Children (with C. R. Bulla, 1952). Mama Hattie's Girl (1953). On a Summer Day (1953). Corn-Farm Boy (1954). Project Boy (1954). Songs of Mr. Small (with C. R. Bulla, 1954). A Dog Came to School (with C. R. Bulla, 1955). San Francisco Boy (1955). Berries in the Scoop (1956). Big Little Davy (1956). Flood Friday (1956). Songs of the City (with C. R. Bulla, 1956). We Live by the River (1956). Davy and His Dog (1957). Houseboat Girl (1957). I Went for a Walk (with C. R. Bulla, 1958). Little Sioux Girl (with C. R. Bulla, 1958). At Our House (with C. R. Bulla, 1959). Coal Camp Girl (1959). We Live in the Country (1960). When I Grow Up (with C. R. Bulla, 1960). Davy Goes Places (1961). Policeman Small (1962). We Live in the Southwest (1962) Shoo-Fly Girl (1963). The Life I Live (1965). We Live in the North (1965). High-Rise Secret (1966). Debbie and Grandmother (1967). To Be a Logger (1967). Adventure in Understanding (1968). Deer Valley Girl (1968). Lois Lenski's Christmas Stories (1968). Debbie and Her Family (1969).Debbie Herself (1969). Journey into Childhood: The Autobiography of Lois Lenski (1972).

There are two Lois Lenski Collections, one at the Florida State University Library in Tallahassee, Florida, and the other within the University of Oklahoma Library.

Bibliography:

Bird, N., ed., Lois Lenski Collection in the Florida State University Library (1966). Giambra, C., The Lois Lenski Children's Collection in the Edward H. Butler Library (1977). Greenberg, M. H. and C. Waugh, eds., Newbery Christmas: Fourteen Stories of Christmas by Newbery Award-Winning Authors (1998). Hawk, R. E., "Lois Lenski and Her Influence on American Children's Literature" (thesis, 1961). Isa, J. W., Lois Lenski: Her Contribution to Children's Literature (thesis, 1957). Portwood, D., "The Geographical, Socio-Economical and Psychological Values in Lois Lenski's Regional Books" (thesis, 1954). Ram, M. L., "The Regional Stories of Lois Lenski" (thesis, 1952). Ram, M. L. An Analysis of the Lois Lenski Literature from a Sociological Point of View (1980).

Reference works:

Newbery Medal Books, 1922-1955 (1955). SAA (1971).

Other references:

Lois Lenski Interviewed by Her Stepson, Laird Covey in 1968 (audio recording, 1968). Lois Lenski Interviewed by Ralph Jennings in 1957 (audio recording, 1957). Lutheran Libraries (Winter 1969). North Carolina Folklore (December 1961). Ohiana Quarterly (Spring 1970). This Day (January 1970).

—LOIS R. KUZNETS