Willard, Dale C.

PERSONAL: Married. Education: University of Oklahoma, B.A., 1959.

ADDRESSES: Home—Lafayette, CO. Agent—Stacey Glick, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, One Union Square W., New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: Writer. Has worked variously as an engineer, a high school history teacher, a high school English teacher, and in educational films.

WRITINGS:

My Son, My Brother, My Friend: A Novel in Letters, Inter Varsity Press (Downers Grove, IL), 1978, Cornerstone Press Chicago (Chicago, IL), 1995.

The Linnet's Tale, illustrated by James Noel Smith, Scribner (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Dale C. Willard's debut novel, My Son, My Brother, My Friend: A Novel in Letters, highlights the correspondence of four men. Through their letters, readers learn about their lives and desires. The book, originally published in 1978, was reprinted seventeen years later.

For his next literary undertaking, Willard crafted a "children's book" for adults. The Linnet's Tale takes place in the town of Tottensea Burrows, populated primarily by field mice and one linnet (or finch), named Waterford Hopstep, who fell out of a tree as a fledgling, was abandoned by his parents, and was raised by kindly mice. As the narrator of the story, Waterford introduces readers to an array of characters with unusual names: Merchanty Swift is a young, debonair mouse who performs an important heroic act; Mr. and Mrs. Fieldpea and their daughters, Almandine, Grenadine, and Incarnadine, own the town's bookstore; Opportune Baggs is the town inventor and creator of a Mousewriter machine. Dozens of other characters inhabit the quiet town—quiet, that is, until a feline moves in amidst the mice and pirate rats threaten the town's tranquility.

"You will want to live in Tottensea Burrows once you have read about it," remarked Mary Jessica Hammes in a review published on the Online Athens Web site. "The story is engaging and clever, filled with witty (not cumbersome) verbiage." A Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that The Linnet's Tale "should amuse the most childlike adults—and the most grown-up of children." In a review for Booklist, Michele Leber maintained: "These are endearing creatures, and their story is a charming one for all ages."

Willard explained to Hammes that the idea for the book came to him when he discovered a group of field mice eating from his dog's food dish. When Willard noticed the holes they had burrowed in his backyard, the author began concocting their imaginary world, and Tottensea Burrows was born. "It's an unusual story for adults," Willard told Hammes. "But I've always admired The Wind in the Willows."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2002, Michele Leber, review of The Linnet's Tale, p. 1214.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2002, review of The Linne's Tale, p. 71.

Publishers Weekly, February 18, 2002, review of The Linnet's Tale, p. 74.

ONLINE

Online Athens Web site, http://www.onlineathens.com/ (May 13, 2002), Mary Jessica Hammes, "Charming Tale of Where the Wild Things Live," review of The Linnet's Tale.