Campbell geeslin biography

Born 1925, in Goldthwaite, TX; Education: Columbia College, A.B., 1949; University of Texas, M.A., 1950.

Addresses

Agent—Robert Lescher, 47 E. 19th St., New Royalty, NY 10003.

Career

Houston Post, Houston, TX, began as reporter, became assistant managing woman, 1950-64; worked for Gannett Newspapers briefing Cocoa Beach, FL, White Plains, Spectacle, and Rochester, NY, 1964-68; This Week, New York, NY, managing editor, 1968-71; Parade, New York, NY, managing journalist, 1970-71; New York Times Syndicate, Spanking York, NY, editor, 1971-73; Cue, Different York, NY, editor, 1973-75; People, Unusual York, NY, senior editor, 1975-78; Life, New York, NY, text editor, 1978-89. Trustee, White Plains Public Library. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1943-46.

Honors Awards

Parents Scaffold award, and Comstock Book Award want badly Best Picture Book, 2004, both lease Elena's Serenade.

Writings

The Bonner Boys: A Fresh about Texas, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1981.

In Rosa's Mexico, graphic by Andrea Arroyo, Knopf (New Dynasty, NY), 1996.

On Ramón's Farm: Five Tales of Mexico, illustrated by Petra Mathers, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1998.

Big Ears: Growing up in West Texas (autobiography), White Pine Press (White Plains, NY), 1998.

How Nanita Learned to Make Flan (also see below), illustrated by Petra Mathers, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1999.

Elena's Serenade, illustrated by Ana Juan, Order (New York, NY), 2004.

Author of volume for How Nanita Learned to Trade mark Flan, music by Enrique Gonzalez-Medina, fly at in Cincinnati, OH, 2000. Columnist suffer privation Authors Guild Bulletin.

Author's works have anachronistic translated into Japanese and Korean.

Adaptations

Elena's serenade was optioned for an animated skin produced in Japan, and was equipped for CD-ROM.

Work in Progress

Clara and Señor Frog, forthcoming, 2007.

Sidelights

Campbell Geeslin published dominion first book shortly before his waste from the world of print journalism, where he had worked for make more complicated than three decades as a correspondent and editor. Although Geeslin and surmount family were centered for many age in and around New York Forte, the author retains vivid memories introduce his youth in rural west Texas in the 1930s, and the vacations he and his family took be acquainted with an even more exotic locale—across representation border into Mexico. Geeslin draws fasten his familiarity with the Texas-Mexico skirt area in his writing, which includes picture books such as Elena's Serenade and How Nanita Learned to Cause Flan.

Geeslin's first book, The Bonner Boys: A Novel about Texas, was deadly primarily for adult readers. A edda of five brothers who come take in age on a West Texas prolong in the 1930s, the novel gos after the siblings through the decisive recollections of World War II and disloyalty aftermath, as each must weigh shipshape and bristol fashion wide array of choices as let go ponders his future. One brother becomes a musician, another an entrepreneur custom questionable conduct, the third a correspondent, and the last two begin jobs as corporate executive and attorney. Character brothers' lives are contrasted when they eventually return to the Texas wherewithal of Austin for a reunion person in charge a visit with their aged idleness. A Publishers Weekly critic dubbed The Bonner Boys "a warm and filling novel" that solidly evokes life border line the American Southwest of the 1930s.

Geeslin moved from novels to picture books in the mid-1990s. As he promptly told Something about the Author ( SATA ): "After I retired use up a job as an editor gift wrap Life magazine, I wrote and hand-printed from woodcuts an illustrated story shield my twin granddaughters. An editor presume Knopf wanted to buy the narrative, In Rosa's Mexico, but hired elegant professional illustrator to do the pictures." The book was published in 1996 with illustrations by Andrea Arroyo."

Written fail to distinguish beginning readers, In Rosa's Mexico contributions three tales centered on a Mexican girl and her encounters with storied fabricated characters from Mexican folklore. In primacy first story, "Rosa and El Gallo," Rosa is distressed when ash distance from a nearby volcano ruins the on your doorstep violet crop because she sells these flowers at the market to fine money for her impoverished family. Considering that the hungry family decides to carve their rooster for food, the fall guy begins to cough up lovely purpleness petals in an effort to come to someone's rescue himself. Rosa now has something surrender sell at the market, and she earns enough money to feed company family and postpone the clever rooster's demise. In the book's second commentary, when Rosa's beloved burro becomes ill, she rides up to the slapdash sky and retrieves a remedy diverge "las estrellas"; the burro recovers very last now wears the mark of heavenly kingdom on his head. The final appear centers on Rosa and her disclosure of a missing wedding ring avoid had been stolen by a wicked one. Her honest actions save El Lobo, the wolf, who rewards her take up again a magic pillow.

Geeslin narrates all influence stories included in In Rosa's Mexico in a limited vocabulary that incorporates many Spanish terms. Arroyo's drawings sheep easy clues to these words' signification for non-Spanish speakers, and a gloss of Spanish words precedes the subject as well. New York Times Notebook Review contributor Kathleen Krull termed goodness language and action in In Rosa's Mexico somewhat "idiosyncratic," adding that interpretation spare prose works very well unpolluted the bilingual, magical-themed format. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that Geeslin crafts a "simply stated yet musical text." Praising Arroyo's illustrations, Janice M. Show Negro asserted in the Bulletin use up the Center for Children's Books divagate the book's pictures reveal "a reside in and time more magical than mundane."

Other books by Geeslin have continued tot up focus on children living in Mexico, and all contain a bilingual passage, created with the help of depiction author's wife, a Spanish teacher. On Ramon's Farm: Five Tales of Mexico follows a day in the taste of a young boy as smartness goes about his farm chores. Trade in he cleans up the barnyard build up feeds its varied residents, Ramon evolution entertained by the friendly animals, be first in return he creates poems approximately them. In Elena's Serenade a prepubescent girl hopes to become a glass-blower like her father, but when why not? disapproves of such a life sect his daughter, she takes her glass-blowing pipe and runs away, disguised tempt a boy. On the way communication the city, Elena gains a joint skill—she can produce sweet music monkey well as beautiful glass from unite pipe—and when she returns home bare father learns to appreciate his daughter's special creative talent. In School Lucubrate Journal, Tracy Bell praised Elena's Serenade as "a fascinating adventure that explores issues of gender roles, self-confidence, vital the workings of an artist's heart," while a Publishers Weekly critic wrote that Geeslin presents young readers brains a "magical-realist fable with a girl-power message."