Eloise Greenfield 1929–

Children’s author

Experienced Shyness

Made First Writing Attempts

The Demands of a Full Life

Selected writings

Sources

The author of more than a dozen prize-winning books for children, Eloise Greenfield has helped give black youngsters a literature about their own life experiences. Greenfield’s simple yet eloquent tales cover the familiar territory of childhood, from fantasies to fears, even to living with disabilities. The characters in her books wrestle with all the challenges of growing up as seen from a black American perspective. According to Betty Valdes in the Interracial Books for Children Bulletin, Greenfield “consistently… illuminates key aspects of the black experience in a way that underlines both its uniqueness and its universality.”

As an author, Greenfield feels she has an important—indeed essential—task. Despite the limitations of the written word, she told Horn Book Magazine, literature can leave a lasting effect on young minds. “I want to encourage children to develop positive attitudes toward themselves and their abilities, to love themselves,” she stated. “As for abilities—self-confidence is half the battle. Children must be able to face their mistakes and weaknesses without losing sight of their strengths.”

Greenfield added: “I want to give children a true knowledge of black heritage, including both the African and the American experiences. The distortions of black history have been manifold and ceaseless. A true history must be the concern of every black writer. It is necessary for black children to have a true knowledge of their past and present, in order that they may develop an informed sense of direction for their future.”

Eloise Greenfield was born on May 17,1929, in Parmele, North Carolina. Although her parents were both high school graduates, her father could not find enough employment to sustain the growing family. When Eloise was still a baby, her parents moved north to Washington, DC, where they rented a room from friends. Greenfield’s father found a temporary job washing dishes in a restaurant. He finally found permanent employment with Peoples Drug Store, making deliveries on a bicycle. Greenfield, who was an avid reader from a very young age, attended segregated schools in the nation’s capital and spent her summers playing with friends and extended family in a close-knit, urban neighborhood.

Experienced Shyness

“I enjoyed being with friends and was a very good student through elementary and junior high school,” Greenfield

At a Glance…

Born May 17, 1929, in Parmele, NC; daughter of Weston W. and Lessie (Jones) Little; married Robert J. Greenfield (a procurement specialist), April 29, 1950; children: Steven, Monica. Education: Attended Miner Teachers College, 1946-49.

U.S. Patent Office, Washington, DC, clerk-typist, 1949-56, supervisory patent assistant, 1956-60; writer, 1958—; worked as a secretary, case-control technician, and an administrative assistant in Washington, DC, 1963-71; District of Columbia Black Writers’ Workshop, co-director of adult fiction, 1971-73, director of children’s literature, 1973-74; District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities, writer-in-residence, 1973, 1985-86. Participant in numerous school and library programs and workshops for children and adults.

Selected awards: Carter G. Woodson Book Award from National Council for the Social Studies, 1974, for Rosa Parks ; Irma Simonton Black Award, Bank Street College of Education, 1974, for she Come Bringing Me That Little Baby Girl ; Jane Addams Children’s Book Award from Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1976, for Paul Robeson ; Coretta Scott King Award, 1978, for African Drea m; Washington, DC Mayor’s Art Award in Literature, 1983; lifetime achievement citation from Ninth Annual Celebration of Black Writing, Philadelphia, PA, 1993.

Addresses: Office —P.O. Box 29077, Washington, DC 20017.

wrote in an essay for the Something About the Author (SATA) Autobiography Series. The one drawback to her success as a student was persistent shyness. “I never volunteered to answer any question or make any comment,” she explained. “Except on rare occasions, I spoke only when a teacher noticed that I hadn’t said anything for a long time and decided to call on me.” The shyness caused Greenfield to dodge speaking roles in school plays and any assignment that would bring her the limelight. “Shyness followed me far into my life,” she recalled. “I didn’t conquer it until I was well into adulthood.”

As a child Greenfield found joy in music. When she was nine her family moved into a home in one of the country’s first public housing projects, and her father saved enough money to buy a piano. Because of her love for music, Greenfield took piano lessons until she was 16, though she never wanted to perform. She credits her family and her neighbors in the housing project with helping to assure a happy and confident childhood.

“Langston Terrace wasn’t an in-between place,” she wrote in her book Childtimes: A Three- Generation Memoir. “It was a growing-up place, a good growing-up place. Neighbors who cared, family and friends, and a lot of fun. Life was good. Not perfect, but good. We knew about problems, heard about them, saw them, lived through some hard ones ourselves, but our community wrapped itself around us, put itself between us and the hard knocks, to cushion the blows.”

After graduating from Cardozo High School in 1946, Greenfield attended Miner Teachers College with the goal of becoming an elementary school teacher. There her shyness finally caught up with her when she was expected to give teaching demonstrations in front of her professors. She dropped out in her third year and went to work as a clerk-typist in the U.S. Patent Office. “I didn’t tell anyone the real reason I was leaving college,” she recalled in her SATA personal essay. “I can look back now and know that my decision was a good one. I am very happy with the way my life has turned out, and so were my parents. But times were different then, and I hope that children who are growing up in these times will obtain as much education as they possibly can, both in school and through independent study.”

Made First Writing Attempts

In 1950, the former Eloise Little married Robert Greenfield, a longtime friend who had served in World War II. The Greenfields soon had two young children, and Greenfield continued working at the Patent Office, although she found the tasks dull and uninspiring. She sometimes wrote silly, rhyming verses in her spare time. From there she began experimenting with songs, dreaming of hearing one of her creations sung by one of the many black artists she admired.

None of her songs were ever published, but the experience of writing them increased her devotion to words and the emotions they could incite. “When I look now at those songs, written more than 40 years ago, I can see that they left a lot to be desired,” she explained in her SATA piece. “But I’m glad I wrote them. They were a part of my development, and they helped to put me on the right track.”

From songs Greenfield graduated to short stories. She decided to try three times to have a story published, and if she failed, to give up writing forever. She wrote three stories and sent them to magazines; all three were rejected. This response—typical for almost every novice writer—did not forever silence her pen, however. Instead she read books about how to write and market her work. “I studied and wrote, and studied and wrote, and submitted my work to publishers,” she recalled in the SATA Autobiography Series. “I received rejections, but I kept going. One of the things I had learned was that rejections were to be expected.” It was almost five years before she earned her first acceptance and saw a poem of hers published in the Hartford Times.

Greenfield joined the District of Columbia Black Writers Workshop in the early 1970s. There she found not only fellow writers with mutual goals but also pratical information about publishers who were seeking manuscripts. She also met author Sharon Bell Mathis, who suggested that Greenfield write a biography for children. By that time Greenfield had experienced some modest success as a published writer, and she had already written her first picture book. She decided to write a biography of civil rights activist Rosa Parks. In 1971, her picture book, Bubbles, was accepted by Drum and Spear Press, and subsequently, Rosa Parks was accepted by the Crowell Biography series.

In the SATA Autobiography Series, Greenfield wrote of those times: “More than 20 years had now elapsed since my first pitiful attempts at writing. What had brought me to this point? First, my love for the work. And, of course, the years of study. Then, from the outside, the African American struggle for justice which had demanded, among other things, literature by and about African Americans.”

Once Greenfield had broken into the publishing world, she found her work in demand. She wrote biographies of Paul Robeson and Mary McLeod Bethune for the Crowell series, the novels Sister and Talk About a Family for children eight to 12, and a number of picture books that were given the prestigious “notable book” citation by the American Library Association. Most remarkably, Greenfield realized that her responsibility as an African American author would almost require her to do some public speaking. At mid-life she finally overcame the shyness that had troubled her as a youngster, and she found herself addressing writers’ conferences as well as classrooms of her youthful readers.

Much of Greenfield’s fiction concerns family bonding, a subject the author finds as important as black history. Noting in Horn Book that “love is a staple in most black families,” she writes repeatedly of the changing patterns of parental and sibling involvement, stressing the child’s ability to cope with changes both positive and negative. In her Irma Simonton Black Award-winning picture book, She Come Bringing Me That Little Baby Girl, for instance, a young character named Kevin must learn to share his parents’ love with his new sister.

The novel Sister, which received a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year citation, concerns a girl caught in the family stress following a parent’s death. Greenfield explained her hopes for books like Sister in Horn Book: “Sister…discovers that she can use her good times as stepping stones, as bridges, to get over the hard times…. My hope is that children in trouble will not view themselves as blades of wheat caught in countervailing winds but will seek solutions, even partial or temporary solutions, to their problems.”

The Demands of a Full Life

Since 1973 Greenfield has published on average one book each year. Time has become a precious commodity for the author, who often works as much as ten hours a day. “There are times when I’m working on a book that I tell myself I’m not at home, I’m away at a writers’ retreat,” she explains in SATA Autobiography Series. “At these times, I don’t allow myself to do anything that I could not do if I actually were away. This ploy helps me to keep my responsibilities in perspective and dissolves feelings of guilt about tasks that are going undone.”She also noted: “I love to visit with children in schools and libraries, but that is rarely possible now. I hope children understand that there are not enough writers to cover all of the schools, but that we put our love for them in our books and hope they can feel it.”

Greenfield’s aims as a children’s author are many. She wants to provoke creative thought and activity, a joyous interaction with words and text. “I want to be one of those who can choose and order words that children will want to celebrate,” she concluded in Horn Book. “I want to make them shout and laugh and blink back tears and care about themselves. They are our future. They are beautiful. They are for loving.”

Reflecting on her successful writing career, Greenfield wrote in SATA Autobiography Series: “From where I stand, at this point in my life, I can look back and see growth. And I have a clear view now of the winding path that brought me here. There might have been a shorter path, but I enjoyed all the steps, the process of learning to write. And even now, it is writing, not being a writer, that brings me the deepest satisfaction.” She concluded: “I’m glad I chose this work. I would still like to produce children’s plays someday. …I hope I get to do that. But there are only so many hours in one lifetime, and if I never get to do those things, I will still be happy that I was able to spend so much of my life in a love affair with words.”

Selected writings

Bubbles, illustrated by Eric Marlow, Drum & Spear, 1972, published as Good News, illustrated by Pat Cummings, Coward, 1977.

Rosa Parks, illustrated by Marlow, Crowell, 1973.

She Come Bringing Me That Little Baby Girl, illustrated by John Steptoe, Lippincott, 1974.

Sister (novel), illustrated by Barnett, Crowell, 1974.

Me and Neesie, illustrated by Moneta Barnett, Crowell, 1975.

Paul Robeson, illustrated by Ford, Crowell, 1975.

First Pink Light, illustrated by Barnett, Crowell, 1976, revised edition, illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist, Black Butterfly, 1991.

Africa Dream, illustrated by Carole Byard, John Day, 1977.

Mary McLeod Bethune, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, Crowell, 1977.

Honey, I Love, and Other Love Poems, illustrated by Diane and Leo Dillon, Crowell, 1978.

(With mother, Lessie Jones Little) I Can Do It by Myself, illustrated by Byard, Crowell, 1978.

Talk About a Family (novel), illustrated by James Calvin, Lippincott, 1978, HarperCollins, 1993.

(With L. J. Little) Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir, illustrated by Pinkney, Crowell, 1979.

Darlene, illustrated by George Ford, Methuen, 1980.

Grandmama’s Joy, illustrated by Byard, Collins, 1980.

(With Alesia Revis) Alesia, illustrated by Ford, with photographs by Sandra Turner Bond, Philomel/Putnam, 1981.

Daydreamers, with pictures by Tom Feelings, Dial, 1981.

Grandpa’s Face, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, Putnam, 1988.

Nathaniel Talking (poems), Black Butterfly, 1988.

Under the Sunday Tree, illustrated by Amos Ferguson, HarperCollins, 1988.

Big Friend, Little Friend, illustrated by Gilchrist, Black Butterfly, 1991.

I Make Music, illustrated by Gilchrist, Black Butterfly, 1991.

Lisa’s Daddy and Daughter Day, illustrated by Gilchrist, Sundance, 1991.

My Doll, Keshia, illustrated by Gilchrist, Black Butterfly, 1991.

My Daddy and I, illustrated by Gilchrist, Black Butterfly, 1991.

Night on Neighborhood Street, illustrated by Gilchrist, Dial, 1991.

Koya DeLaney and the Good Girl Blues, Scholastic, 1992.

Aaron and Gayla’s Alphabet Book, illustrated by Gilchrist, Black Butterfly, 1993.

William and the Good Old Days, illustrated by Gilchrist, HarperCollins, 1993.

Sweet Baby Coming, illustrated by Gilchrist, HarperCollins, 1994.

Honey, I Love (picture book), illustrated by Gilchrist, HarperCollins, 1995.

On My Horse, illustrated by Gilchrist, HarperCollins, 1995.

Other

Contributor to numerous anthologies for young readers; contributor to World Book Encyclopedia; contributor to magazines and newspapers.

Sources

Books

Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Volume 19, Gale, 1987, p. 215-19.

Greenfield, Eloise and Lessie Jones Little, Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir, Crowell, 1979.

Something About the Author, Volume 61, Gale, 1991, p. 89-102.

Something About the Author Autobiography Series, Volume 16, Gale, 1993, p. 173-85.

Periodicals

Horn Book, December 1975.

Interracial Books for Children Bulletin, Volume 11, number 5, 1980; Volume 11, number 8, 1980.

Language Arts, September 1980.

—Anne Janette Johnson