It's a tradition for many families at this time of year
to think about the people and events for which we are grateful.
But we also feel the absence of those who are missing around the table;
this year there are a lot of empty places.
At the service for Kate McClelland and Kathy Krasniewicz
earlier this year, the tribe of storytellers shared their belief
that "as long as a person's name is spoken, they are never forgotten."
The many Young Critics they raised at the Perrot Memorial Library
and the many fellow book lovers in the field of children's books
will long keep their memories alive.
Anyone who knew Craig Virden can still hear his laughter.
Before he rose to the top of the Random House children's division,
Craig often introduced himself as "Mr. Nancy Gallt,"
the other half of his beautiful red-headed bride
(of just shy of a decade at that point, in the mid-1980s).
Nancy was head of subsidiary rights at Harper then,
And she has quite an infectious laugh herself
(as an editorial assistant, I sat right outside her office).
Craig loved music and had a beautiful singing voice,
but there was no sweeter sound
than Craig and Nancy laughing together.
A word lover and a champion of authors, artists and editors,
Craig cared most about a story well told
and could give a writer, editor and friend
one incisive observation that held the key
to a novel or rewrite.
"Maybe Sarah needs her own book," he told Patty MacLachlan
when he read her Arthur, for the Very First Time
as her agent at Curtis Brown.
"Write about your family," he suggested to Patricia Reilly Giff.
In all of the tributes in PW from his colleagues,
His warmth, generosity, and humor stand out most.
Eden Ross Lipson,
after running the Children's Book Review section
of the New York Times for 21 years,
and writing The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children,
at last wrote her own children's book:
Applesauce Season,
illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Mordicai Gerstein.
Although it was a fall book,
Roaring Brook's publisher, Simon Boughton,
Bound up a set of f&gs this spring when her health worsened,
to make sure she could hold in her hands
the first hardcover copy.
It is a story of preserving family traditions (and recipes)
and passing them down through generations.
Dwight Garner recently recalled the words of Eden Ross Lipson
In a piece he wrote for the New York Times
about Maurice Sendak's books:
"It isn't the critics' reviews.
It's whether your kids choose to read the book to their kids."
She knew how to identify the books that would last for generations.
Norma Fox Mazer's books
laid out tough questions facing young adults
and gave no easy answers.
She believed it was enough to let teens know
that someone else saw what they were up against.
Her husband, Harry Mazer, was about to publish Cave Under the City (Harper, 1986)
When he first introduced me to Norma.
They were radiant together;
their mutual respect for each other--as writers and as people--
was evident in everything they said and did.
Elizabeth Bluemle of The Flying Pig Bookstore
In Vermont, the state the Mazers called home, wrote a lovely tribute on her blog.
It was impossible to talk with Milton Meltzer
for more than five minutes without hearing about
his most recent efforts to set the record straight,
often to let the voices be heard that had long been silent in the history books.
When I met him at Harper, he was working on
The American Revolutionaries: A History in Their Own Words, 1750-1800.
He was one of the first to use primary source material
and interviews in books for young people.
Wendy Saul said it best in her eloquent tribute to Milton in the Horn Book
On the occasion of his winning the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal:
"From the beginning, Meltzer saw his readers
as people anxious for a truly inclusive historical record,
as well as people hungry for information."
Every holiday season, Esther Hautzig brought a plate of cookies
To the marketing department at what was then Harper & Row.
Bill Morris, head of library promotion
and a proud Adlai Stevenson democrat,
introduced her this way:
"I want you to meet Esther Hautzig.
Adlai Stevenson told her to write The Endless Steppe.
So she did."
Esther would fill in the details
of how she wrote a letter to Stevenson
in response to articles he'd written about Siberia,
where Esther and her family had been exiled by the Soviets.
At her memorial service earlier this month, Esther's daughter, Deborah Hautzig,
said that being "born in Vilna, Poland, was the first thing
[Esther] wanted people to know about her."
According to Joseph Berger, who wrote Esther's obituary for the New York Times,
and who also spoke at her service,
"In her telling, Vilna was more cultured than Paris in the 1920s."
Berger also wrote a moving article a decade ago
about a pilgrimage Esther made back to Vilna (now Vilnius)
to honor the work of her uncle, who died in 1944.
"At least here is proof,... of how people lived and what they did,
not that they died," she told Berger.
In her final hours, Esther was listening to her husband of 59 years,
Vienna-born concert pianist Walter Hautzig, play Chopin.
Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky said that despite all she had witnessed,
Esther believed that "all prayers are heard."
He read the passage in The Endless Steppe
When young Esther is lost in the snow and pushes forward silently,
Then hears her mother's voice, " 'Esther... Esther...'
And then something else.
'Sh'mah Israel…'
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One."
Rabbi Kalmanofsky invited us to walk behind Esther's hearse,
a tradition reserved for great teachers.
Karla Kuskin loved to collect.
Not just words, which she used with exquisite precision.
But also "tiny wonders perfectly placed," in her daughter Julia's words
at a memorial service last month.
Paula Fox quoted the wonderful ending to
The Philharmonic Gets Dressed.
After taking readers through the Friday night preparations,
of 105 musicians, from showers to shaving, from underwear to overcoat,
Karla writes, "Their work is to play. Beautifully."
Paula Fox added, "So was hers. And so she did."
Julia's husband, Joel, said that in Karla's hands,
"Junk becomes treasure. Artists can do this.
They ask you to look again: 'Behold the swizzle stick.' "
But, he said, "Mostly she collected people."
He continued, "To collect is to find and to not let go,
Even if it's the easiest thing to do.
We've been curated by Karla."
Let us be curators, like Karla.
Let us keep alive the stories of these remarkable people.
Kate and Kathy
Craig and Eden
Norma and Milton
Esther and Karla.