Rubin, Susan Goldman 1939-

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Rubin, Susan Goldman 1939-

Personal

Born March 14, 1939, in New York, NY; daughter of Abraham (a manufacturing jeweler) and Julia (a homemaker) Moldof; married Hubert M. Goldman (a physician), June, 1959 (divorced, 1976); married Michael B. Rubin (a real estate broker), December 30, 1978; children: (first marriage) Katie Goldman Kolpas, John, Peter; (second marriage) Andrew. Education: Oberlin College, B.A. (English; with honors), 1959; graduate study at University of California—Los Angeles, 1961-62, attended extension program, 1980-91. Politics: Democrat Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Cooking, going to movies and theater, reading.

Addresses

Home—Malibu, CA. Agent—George M. Nicholson, Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc., 65 Bleecker St., New York, NY 10012. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Children's book writer and illustrator, 1975—; freelance writer of educational filmstrips, 1975-78. California State University Department of Continuing Education, Northridge, instructor, 1977-86; University of California Extension School Writer's Program, Los Angeles, instructor in creative writing, 1986—. Designers West, Los Angeles, editorial assistant, 1991-92.

Member

Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, PEN, Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People.

Awards, Honors

National Endowment for the Humanities Travel to Collections grant, 1993; International Reading Association Young Adults' Choice designation, 1995, for Emily Good as Gold; Sydney Taylor Award Honor Book designation, 2000, and SCBWI Golden Kite Honor Book designation, 2001, both for Fireflies in the Dark; Children's Literature Council of Southern California Award for nonfiction, and American Library Association (ALA) Best Book for Young Adults, both 2000, both for Margaret Bourke-White; ALA Notable Book Designation, 2003, for Degas and the Dance; Association of Jewish Libraries Notable Children's Book of Jewish Content, 2006, for The Flag with Fifty-six Stars; Sydney Taylor Award Honor Book designation, 2006, and ALA Notable Book designation, 2007, both for The Cat with the Yellow Star; ALA Notable Book designation, and National Parenting Publications Gold Award, both 2006, and Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Book Award shortlist, 2007, all for Andy Warhol: Pop Art Painter.

Writings

(And illustrator) Grandma Is Somebody Special, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1976.

(And illustrator) Cousins Are Special, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1978.

(And illustrator) Grandpa and Me Together, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1980.

Walk with Danger (young-adult mystery), Silhouette Books (New York, NY), 1986.

The Black Orchid (young-adult mystery), Crosswinds, 1988.

Emily Good as Gold (middle-grade novel), Browndeer/Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 1993.

The Rainbow Fields, illustrated by Heather Preston, Enchante Publishing, 1993.

Frank Lloyd Wright (biography; "First Impressions" series), Abrams (New York, NY), 1994.

Emily in Love, Browndeer/Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 1996.

Margaret Bourke-White (biography; "First Impressions" series), Abrams (New York, NY), 1996, published as Margaret Bourke-White: Her Pictures Were Her Life, 1999.

The Whiz Kids Plugged In, illustrated by Doug Cushman, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1997.

The Whiz Kids Take Off!, illustrated by Doug Cushman, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1997.

Toilets, Toasters, and Telephones: The How and Why of Everyday Objects, illustrated by Elsa Warnick, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 1998.

Fireflies in the Dark: The Story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and the Children of Terezin, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2000.

The Yellow House: Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin Side by Side, illustrated by Joseph A. Smith, Abrams (New York, NY), 2001.

There Goes the Neighborhood: Ten Buildings People Loved to Hate, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2001.

Steven Spielberg: Crazy for Movies, Abrams (New York, NY), 2001.

Degas and the Dance: The Painter and the Petit Rats Perfecting Their Art, Abrams (New York, NY), 2002.

Searching for Anne Frank: Letters from Amsterdam to Iowa, Abrams (New York, NY), 2003.

L'Chaim!: To Jewish Life in America!: Celebrations from 1654 until Today, Abrams (New York, NY), 2004.

Art against the Odds: From Slave Quilts to Prison Paintings, Crown (New York, NY), 2004.

The Flag with Fifty-six Stars: A Gift from the Survivors of Mauthausen, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2005.

Andy Warhol: Pop Art Painter, Abrams (New York, NY), 2005.

(With Ela Weissberger) The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2006.

Haym Salomon: American Patriot, illustrated by David Slonim, Abrams (New York, NY), 2006.

Edward Hopper: Painter of Light and Shadow, Abrams (New York, NY), 2007.

Delicious: The Life and Art of Wayne Thiebaud, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA), 2007.

Counting with Wayne Thiebaud, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA), 2007.

Andy Warhol's Colors, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA), 2007.

Also author of educational filmstrips for McGraw-Hill, BFA, and Pied Piper Productions; contributor of short fiction to Highlights for Children.

Author's works have been translated into Italian, French, and Spanish.

Sidelights

Susan Goldman Rubin is the author of a number of acclaimed nonfiction works for younger readers. In her biographies for children, Rubin focuses on individuals ranging from nineteenth-century Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and documentary photographer Margaret Bourke-White to groundbreaking architect Frank Lloyd Wright and modern filmmmaker Steven Spielberg, while her other nonfiction works explore buildings, technology, and art history. In addition to nonfiction, Rubin is also the author of novels for middle graders, such as Emily Good as Gold and Emily in Love, and she has written the well-received young-adult mystery The Black Orchid. In several of her nonfiction titles, such as The Flag with Fifty-six Stars: A Gift from the Survivors of Mauthausen, Fireflies in the Dark: The Story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and the Children of Terezin, and The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin, Rubin explores the dark period of world history known as the Holocaust.

While growing up in the Bronx, Rubin dreamed of becoming an artist and illustrating children's books. As a teen she took classes at New York City's Art Students League and also attended the High School of Music and Art. After graduation, Rubin enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio, where she eventually received her B.A. with honors in English. "[When] I moved to California as a young wife and mother," she later recalled, "I couldn't easily go back to New York to show my portfolio and try to get illustrating assignments. So I began writing my own stories to give myself something to illustrate. When I sent my picture-book dummies to editors, I found, to my great surprise, that they were as interested in my writing as my artwork. With their rejection letters came suggestions for revisions." By now living in California, Rubin took writing classes at the University of California—Los Angeles Extension and earned her first publishing credit when one of her stories was published in Highlights for Children magazine.

Rubin's first published book, the self-illustrated Grandma Is Somebody Special, was inspired by events in her own family, as were the young-adult novels Walk with Danger and The Black Orchid, which "grew from incidents I read about in the newspaper," as Rubin

recalled. Her middle-grade novels Emily Good as Gold and Emily in Love had their genesis in an educational filmstrip the author produced with her first husband. "We researched and photographed at a special school for handicapped children in Los Angeles," Rubin once explained, "and I was deeply moved by the students I met. I felt that our filmstrip would only scratch the surface in terms of changing people's negative attitudes toward those who are disabled. I thought a middle-grade novel featuring a heroine who is mentally retarded would be more effective." In Emily in Love Rubin follows her teen protagonist experiences at a regular high school. Determined to date a non-learning-disabled student, Emily unwisely takes advice from her friend and classmate Molly. The two host a party with the goal of wooing a boy named Hunt, but the party has a disastrous outcome, leaving Emily aware that she has deceived her family as well as her friends in her pursuit of romance. Emily in Love "succeeds in showing how alike Emily is to most fourteen-year-old girls," remarked Voice of Youth Advocates reviewer Melissa Thacker, while Stephanie Zvirin predicted in Booklist that the novel's theme will resonate with young readers. "There's a universal message here as Rubin clearly shows the effects of prejudice on self-esteem," Zvirin wrote.

Since the late 1990s Rubin has concentrated on nonfiction in her books for children. With its focus on homebased technology, Toilets, Toasters, and Telephones: The How and Why of Everyday Objects examines the industrial-design history of household items from vacuum cleaners and stoves to plumbing fixtures, and explains how these objects gained in popularity among consumers to the point at which they became commonplace. She also discusses several failed designs, such as revolving shelves for refrigerators. "The text is solid, serious, and backed by an impressive bibliography," wrote Randy Meyer in a Booklist review of the book.

In Margaret Bourke-White: Her Pictures Were Her Life Rubin focuses on one of the first female photojournalists, and includes fifty-six of the photographer's black-and-white images. One of Life magazine's "Founding Four" photographers and a women credited with capturing some of the most well-known images of the first half of the twentieth century, Bourke-White was dedicated and fearless, often taking great risks to secure her photographs. Bourke-White spent time on the battle-fields of World War II, and her photographs of the skeletal survivors of Nazi Germany's recently liberated concentration camps were indelible. As Rubin notes in her biography, although Bourke-White's mother voiced anti-Semitic views, the photographer later learned that she herself was part Jewish on her father's side. In a review of Margaret Bourke-White Roger Leslie wrote in Booklist that "Rubin does a brilliant job of bringing in personal elements that resonate with real emotion." A Publishers Weekly reviewer predicted that the author's "understated, seemingly effortless narrative" aids readers in understanding "that many of the images they take for granted today had their roots in the work of this daring pioneer."

Rubin focuses on creative individuals—such as artists Edgar Degas and Andy Warhol, filmmaker Steven Spielberg, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright—in biographies designed to introduce young readers to innovations in the arts. Called "a lovely book" by School Library Journal contributor Robin L. Gibson, Degas and the Dance: The Painter and the Petits Rats, Perfecting Their Art profiles the French painter who captured the lives of the working-class ballerinas of the Paris Opera in hundreds of loosely rendered works. Praising the book as "gloriously illustrated," a Kirkus Reviews writer added that Degas and the Dance "paint[s] … a portrait of an extraordinarily dedicated artist." Also set in France, The Yellow House: Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin Side by Side recounts the two-month period late in 1888 when French painter Paul Gauguin visited Vincent van Gogh's farmhouse in the south of France. In addition to the growing animosity that developed because of their explosive personalities, the two artists had vastly different temperaments and work habits: Gauguin was slow and deliberate, making preliminary drawings of his subject before committing paint to canvas, while the exuberant, emotional Van Gogh sometimes squeezed pig- ment directly from the tube onto his brush. The men quarreled frequently, hastening Gauguin's eventual departure and accelerating his host's declining mental health. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly concluded in a review of The Yellow House that Rubin's "incisive, accessible analysis of some of the paintings created during their time together accompanies crisp reproductions of their work."

Andy Warhol: Pop Art Painter focuses on work that is familiar to many young children. Drawing on the recollections of Warhol's friends, family, and colleagues, Rubin focuses on the painter's interest in shoes, Siamese cats, and the quirks of popular culture in which, he predicted, everyone would achieve fifteen minutes of fame. Noting that the author "treat[s] Warhol's idiosyncrasies as youthful rather than disturbing," a Publishers Weekly maintained that Rubin "offers safe, evasive commentary on a complicated person." Agreeing that Rubin appropriately skirts the more controversial aspects of the artist's life in her elementary-grade biography, Booklist reviewer Gillian Engberg praised Andy Warhol as "concise" and featuring "clear, straightforward language."

When Rubin decided to write a biography of Steven Spielberg, the director behind such films as E.T. and Schindler's List, she recognized that Spielberg traditionally avoided participating in such projects. Knowing that the director's mother, Leah Adler, operated a kosher restaurant called The Milky Way, Rubin decided to visit Adler at work, show her some of her books, and ask for advice in contacting the noted Hollywood director. Although Adler initially declined, she eventually reconsidered, telling Rubin, "‘I like you. I like your books,’" as the author later recalled to an interviewer for Publishers Weekly. In Steven Spielberg: Crazy for Movies Rubin presents Spielberg's life through his own commentary as well as recollections from some of the most incisive critics of all: his family and friends. Many of these comments recall Spielberg's fascination with filmmaking at an early age, and his use of an 8-millimeter camera to create visual stories. The book pairs Rubin's text with also contains fascinating family photographs that add a personal depth to the biography. "Fans of film will revel in this behind-the-scenes look at Spielberg's childhood, movies and the choices that led to his stellar career," stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

As she did in Margaret Bourke-White, Rubin focuses her attention on the World War II era in several other works of nonfiction. In Fireflies in the Dark she profiles the life of a woman who collected and preserved a precious cache of 5,000 drawings and poems done by the children of the Terezin concentration camp, located in Czechoslovakia. The art, which was discovered following the war, was hidden by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis in suitcases hidden in the attic of one of the camp's barracks buildings, and Rubin learned of this discovery during a visit to the Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, California. As she explains in her book, Dicker-Brandeis was an art therapist in Prague before she was deported to Terezin. She managed to take her art supplies with her and began giving secret art classes to some of the 15,000 children who passed through the camp. Only a hundred would survive to adulthood, and Dicker-Brandeis herself died at the Auschwitz camp in Poland. The drawings reproduced in Rubin's book reveal the tragic dreams of young people longing for parents and their lost worlds: some depict the landscapes of home villages, or families gathering for the Passover holiday, while still others document the horrors young artists experienced at the camp. In Fireflies in the Dark Rubin contains interviews with some of the camp's survivors and recounts their stories as well as that of Dicker-Brandeis. In School Library Journal Patricia Manning called the work a keen addition to the literature of the Holocaust as well as "elegant in appearance, devastating in content, almost overwhelming in its quiet intensity." Other reviewers offered similar praise. "There's no sensationalism here," declared Booklist critic Hazel Rochman. "Everything is distanced, but the sense of loss is overwhelming."

Rubin followed Fireflies in the Dark with The Cat with the Yellow Star, a middle-grade memoir that focuses on one of Dicker-Brandeis's young art students. Ela Stein Weissberger was a talented artist, and many of her drawings and paintings appear in Fireflies in the Dark. Praising The Cat with the Yellow Star as a "poignant biography" of Weissberger's experiences as a child during the Holocaust, Rochman noted in Booklist that the production of the opera Brundibar by Weissberger and her fellow inmates at Terezin add to the book's "hopeful message about the power of music, art, friends, and teachers." Rubin also focuses on the power of creativity during times of personal confinement in Art against the Odds: From Slave Quilts to Prison Paintings, which focuses on convicts, political refugees, concentration-and internment-camp inmates, and the mentally ill. In Searching for Anne Frank: Letters from Amsterdam to Iowa she details the pen-pal correspondence that existed between well-known teen diarist Anne Frank and her older sister Margot and two sisters the same age who lived in Iowa in the years leading up to World War II. The exchange of letters ended when the Frank sisters went into hiding to avoid the Nazi armies that occupied Holland.

In There Goes the Neighborhood: Ten Buildings People Loved to Hate Rubin recounts the harsh critical and public reception of some of the world's most famous structures, from the Washington Monument in America's capital city to Paris's Eiffel Tower. She also discusses Frank Lloyd Wright's daring design for New York City's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, as well as another controversial museum designed by two 1970s architects, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. These buildings share the distinction of being initially vilified by architecture critics, city officials, and the general

public alike until their uniqueness caused them to evolve into accepted landmarks. There Goes the Neighborhood "may well inspire readers to examine buildings … in new ways and bolster their courage to think differently," stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Noting that the volume is "written in simple, engaging language that never condescends," Engberg wrote that Rubin's "stories reveal how architects identified and solved aesthetic and engineering problems, and include fascinating" details about the history of each building, its neighborhood, and the visionary architects who designed them.

As a Jewish American, Rubin follows her interest in her cultural history in several books for young readers. In L'Chaim!: To Jewish Life in America: Celebrations from 1654 until Today she pairs her text with a wealth of photographs and other images that bring to life the long, colorful, and sometimes poignant history of Jews in North America. Beginning with the first Jewish settlement in 1654, Rubin follows the growth of Jewish Americans in business, labor, and society, documenting their significant role in shaping the United States. In Haym Salomon: American Patriot Rubin narrows her focus to one individual who played a significant role in the nation's early history. Salomon, a Polish immigrant to the American colonies at the time of the American Revolution, became a member of the patriotic Sons of Liberty in his adopted country. He also used his experience with European banking to establish the Bank of North America and help finance the young republic's push for independence. Although a Publishers Weekly contributor explained that little information exists about Salomon, in her biography Rubin "does a fine job of imbuing her hero's story with a sense of drama and urgency."

Rubin told SATA: "I feel so lucky to do the work I love. Researching and writing nonfiction these past few years has been tremendously exciting. One book leads to another. IN the course of research I use primary sources: interviews in person and by phone and e-mail, and travel to places I am writing about whenever possible. I look forward to sharing new books with young readers."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 1993, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Emily Good as Gold, p. 514; January 1, 1995, Hazel Rochman, review of Frank Lloyd Wright, p. 812; May 15, 1997, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Emily in Love, pp. 1573-1574; November 1, 1998, Randy Meyer, review of Toilets, Toasters, and Telephones: The How and Why of Everyday Objects, p. 488; November 1, 1999, Roger Leslie, review of Margaret Bourke-White: Her Pictures Were Her Life, p. 526; March 1, 2000, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Margaret Bourke-White, p. 1249; July, 2000, Hazel Rochman, review of Fireflies in the Dark: The Story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and the Children of Terezin, p. 2023; December 15, 2000, Gillian Engberg, review of Fireflies in the Dark, p. 811; August, 2001, Gillian Engberg, review of There Goes the Neighborhood: Ten Buildings People Loved to Hate, p. 2105; November 15, 2001, Gillian Engberg, review of The Yellow House: Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin Side by Side, pp. 578-579; December 1, 2001, Randy Meyer, review of Steven Spielberg: Crazy for Movies, p. 641; December 1, 2002, Carolyn Phelan, review of Degas and the Dance: The Painter and the Petit Rats Perfecting Their Art, p. 662; November 1, 2003, Hazel Rochman, review of Searching for Anne Frank: Letters from Amsterdam to Iowa, p. 489; February 15, 2004, Gillian Engberg, review of Art against the Odds: From Slave Quilts to Prison Paintings, p. 1058; November 1, 2004, Stephanie Zvirin, review of L'Chaim! To Jewish Life in America!: Celebrations from 1654 until Today, p. 474; March 15, 2005, Hazel Rochman, review of The Flag with Fifty-six Stars: A Gift from the Survivors of Mauthausen, p. 1292; June 1, 2006, Hazel Rochman, review of The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin, p. 100; November 1, 2006, Gillian Engberg, review of Andy Warhol: Pop Art Painter, p. 63.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November, 1993, review of Emily Good as Gold, p. 97; April, 1997, review of Emily in Love, p. 294; November, 2000, review of Fireflies in the Dark, p. 119; September, 2001, review of There Goes the Neighborhood, p. 33; December, 2001, review of Steven Spielberg, p. 151; January, 2003, review of Degas and the Dance, p. 210; January, 2004, Betsy Hearne, review of Searching for Anne Frank, p. 205; June, 2004, Deborah Stevenson, review of Art against the Odds, p. 436; January, 2005, Elizabeth Bush, review of L'Chaim!, p. 225.

Horn Book, March, 1999, Mary M. Burns, review of Toilets, Toasters, and Telephones, p. 229; January, 2000, review of Margaret Bourke-White, p. 102; September, 2000, review of Fireflies in the Dark, p. 599; November-December, 2003, Roger Sutton, review of Searching for Anne Frank, p. 76; July-August, 2006, Joanna Rudge Long, review of The Cat with the Yellow Star, p. 468.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 1999, review of Margaret Bourke-White, p. 1748; September 15, 2001, review of The Yellow House, p. 1366; October 15, 2001, review of Steven Spielberg, p. 1492; November 1, 2002, review of Degas and the Dance, p. 1613; October 15, 2003, review of Searching for Anne Frank, p. 1276; February 1, 2004, review of Against the Odds, p. 138; November 15, 2004, review of L'Chaim!, p. 1092; April 1, 2005, review of The Flag with Fifty-six Stars, p. 423; May 15, 2006, review of The Cat with the Yellow Star, p. 522; October 15, 2006, review of Andy Warhol, p. 1079.

New York Times Book Review, January 20, 2002, review of Stephen Spielberg, p. 14.

Publishers Weekly, October 25, 1993, review of Emily Good as Gold, p. 64; November 8, 1999, review of Margaret Bourke-White, p. 70; June 5, 2000, "A Lasting Legacy," p. 96; July 9, 2001, review of There Goes the Neighborhood, p. 69; September 3, 2001, review of The Yellow House, p. 87; November 12, 2001, review of Steven Spielberg, pp. 60-61; October 27, 2003, review of Searching for Anne Frank, p. 71; November 22, 2004, review of L'Chaim!, p. 61; March 21, 2005, review of The Flag with Fifty-six Stars, p. 51; March 20, 2006, review of The Cat with the Yellow Star, p. 57; November 27, 2006, review of Andy Warhol, p. 52; March 26, 2007, review of Haym Salomon: American Patriot, p. 93.

School Library Journal, October, 1993, Cindy Darling Codell, review of Emily Good as Gold, pp. 152-153; January, 1995, Jeanette Larson, review of Frank Lloyd Wright, p. 143; May, 1997, Renee Steinberg, review of Emily in Love, p. 139; November 1, 1998, Ann G. Brouse, review of Toilets, Toasters, and Telephones, p. 142; December, 1999, Carol Fazioli, review of Margaret Bourke-White, pp. 159-160; August, 2000, Patricia Manning, review of Fireflies in the Dark, p. 206; September, 2001, Mary Ann Carcich, review of There Goes the Neighborhood, p. 254; December, 2001, Shauna Yusko, review of Steven Spielberg, p. 171; January, 2002, Robin L. Gibson, review of The Yellow House, p. 124; December, 2002, Robin L. Gibson, re- view of Degas and the Dance, p. 129; November, 2003, Laura Reed, review of Searching for Anne Frank, p. 166; March, 2004, Sophie R. Brooker, review of Art against the Odds, p. 242; January, 2005, Sue Giffard, review of L'Chaim!, p. 154; May, 2005, Anne Chapman Callaghan, review of The Flag with Fifty-six Stars, p. 116; June, 2006, Teri Markson, review of The Cat with the Yellow Star, p. 184; November, 2006, Donna Cardon, review of Andy Warhol, p. 164; May, 2007, Heidi Estrin, review of Haym Salomon, p. 124.

Voice of Youth Advocates, June, 1997, Melissa Thacker, review of Emily in Love, p. 113; October, 2001, review of There Goes the Neighborhood, p. 307; June, 2002, review of Steven Spielberg, p. 141; October, 2003, review of Searching for Anne Frank, p. 336; February, 2005, Sophie Brookover, review of L'Chaim!, p. 508.