Lindbergh, Reeve

views updated

LINDBERGH, Reeve

Born 20 October 1946, Darien, Connecticut

Wrote under Reeve Lindbergh Brown

Daughter of Charles Augustus and Anne Morrow Lindbergh; married Richard Brown; children: four

Like Margaret Truman, another famous daughter-turned-writer, Reeve Lindbergh is the youngest child (of five) of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Most of Lindbergh's works are children's books.Working with such illustrators as Tracey Campbell Pearson, Susan Jeffers, Steven Kellogg, Rachel Isadora, Kimberly Bulcken Root, and many more, Lindbergh's words come to life for youngsters ranging in age from preschoolers to preteens.

In The Midnight Farm (1987), probably Reeve's most popular picture book, the secrets of the dark are revealed in beautiful scenes as a mother takes her child on a midnight tour of a farm, in order to help him overcome his fear of the dark. Next came Benjamin's Barn (1989), another verse book, describing a magnificent barn, while the legendary apple tree planter, John Chapman, comes to life in Johnny Appleseed: A Poem (1990). In The Day the Goose Got Loose (1990), Lindbergh follows the reigning havoc at a farm as all the animals react to the goose's escape by escaping themselves. With Philip S. Hart, Lindbergh also published Flying Free: America's First Black Aviator s (1992) for Lerner's Space and Aviation Series for children, chronicling the achievements of pioneer African-American aviators.

Lindbergh departed temporarily from children's fiction with the release of The Names of the Mountains: A Novel (1992), the story of the family of a famous American aviator and hero, Cal Linley, as they band together to deal with the death of their father and the deteriorating mental capacity of their mother. Although the book has the standard declamation that all events are "fictitious" and any resemblance to persons living or dead is "purely coincidental," the book very deeply mirrors Lindbergh's own life and that of her famous family, including the death of Lindbergh's two-year-old son in 1985 from encephalitis.

View from the Air (1992) provides an enlightening view of humanity's impact on the Earth from a pilot's perspective as Lindbergh and photographer Richard Brown present a plea for conservation by the author's father, Charles Lindbergh, combined with color photographs taken in the early 1970s, when Brown flew with Lindbergh during his last flights over rural New England.

Returning to children's fiction with Grandfather's Lovesong (1993), Lindbergh gives a poetic description of the love between a boy and his grandfather using metaphors of nature throughout the seasons. There's a Cow in the Road (1993) tells the story of a young girl, preparing for school, who is surprised by the number of barnyard animals gathering in the road outside her house. More Lindbergh verse finds voice in If I'd Known Then What I Know Now (1994), as the narrator's father, who is still learning how, takes on another do-it-yourself project, from building their house to raising chickens and sheep, with disastrous yet comical results. What is the Sun? (1994) tells of a grandmother tucking her grandson into bed and answering his wondering questions with replies about the sun, moon, wind, and rain. In Nobody Owns the Sky: The Story of "Brave Bessie" Coleman (1996), Lindbergh again returns to famous aviators, this time celebrating the life of Bessie Coleman (1892-1926), the first licensed African-American aviator in the world, following her from picking cotton in Texas in the late 1800s to her trip to France and her barnstorming days in the United States.

In 1997 Lindbergh returned to story books with North Country Spring, which contains rhyming verse and illustrations to describe the arrival of spring in the North and the emergence of the forest animals, as well as The Awful Aardvarks Go to School (1997), which tells an alphabetical story of the acts of destruction a group of mischievous aardvarks commit during their visit to a school. The Circle of Days (1998) contains Lindbergh's rhymed retelling of St. Francis of Assisi's The Canticle of the Sun (1225), an incantatory hymn of praise for all creation.

In Under a Wing: A Memoir (1998), the first memoir written by a Lindbergh child about the family, Reeve reflects on both the fame and secrecy of her parents' lives, their strengths and weaknesses, how the children were raised under a wing of protectiveness they never understood. It wasn't until they were older and learned about their brother's kidnapping, that the Lindbergh children began to understand. The book also delves into Lindbergh's sister Anne's death from cancer, as well as how she and her mother grew close when Lindbergh's young son died. Lindbergh also wrote the introduction to the 1996 edition of her father's book, The Spirit of St. Louis, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1954, and is mentioned in many books about her family by others. Lindbergh has also been active in Vermont, with speaking engagements and serving on the state board of libraries.