Virginia Euwer Wolff

American children's book author

Virginia Euwer Wolff (born August 25, 1937) is an American author of children's literature.^[1]^[2] Her award-winning series Make Lemonade features a 14-year-old girl named LaVaughn, who babysits for the children of a 17-year-old single mother. There are three books. The second, True Believer, won the 2001 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.^[3] The second and third, This Full House (2009), garnered Kirkus Reviews starred reviews.^[a] She was the recipient of the 2011 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, honoring her entire body of work.^[4]

Biography

Virginia Euwer Wolff was born in Portland, Oregon in 1937. She grew up in a log house with no electricity, on an apple and pear orchard.^[5] In 1945, she began violin lessons, which fermented her love of music.^[6] She attended the girls' school St. Helen's Hall (now Oregon Episcopal School) and Smith College. She married Arthur Richard Wolff in 1959. They divorced in 1976.

In 2003, St. Helen's Hall honored Wolff with a Distinguished Alumna Award. She has lived in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C., but now reads, writes, and plays chamber music in Oregon.^[7]

Books

This Full House First ed. New York: HarperCollins Children's Books 2009. ISBN 978-0-06-158304-9
— concluding the Lemonade trilogy
- Kirkus Review (starred) 02/01/2009
True Believer First ed. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2001. ISBN 0-689-85288-6
— sequel to Make Lemonade
- Kirkus Review (starred) 02/01/2001
- Award: 2001 National Book Award, Young People's Literature (U.S.)^[3]
- Award: Best Children's Books 2001 by Publishers Weekly.
- Junior Library Guild Selection
- Top Ten Book of the Year from the Young Adult Library Services Association^[8]
Bat 6 Henry Holt and Co., 1998 ISBN 0-03-066279-6
- Kirkus Review 05/01/1998
- Oregon Reads 2009 Selection
Make Lemonade. First ed., Henry Holt and Co., 1993 (and many other editions)
- Kirkus Review 05/01/1993
- Citation: American Library Association Notable Children's Book

- Award: Booklist Top of the List winner
The Mozart Season. First ed. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1991.
- Kirkus Review 05/15/1991
- Award: 2011 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association as the best English-language children's book that did not a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. That is named for the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity.^[9]
Probably Still Nick Swansen. First ed. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1988.
Rated PG New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981.

Notes

^ Kirkus Reviews of the three Lemonade novels (above) recommended them for readers age 10+, 12–16, and 13–15, and stated or implied that the heroine is 14, 15, and 17 years old. Evidently they compose a realist "coming-of-age" trilogy featuring an underprivileged urban girl.

References

^ "Virginia Euwer Wolff". WorldCat.org. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
^ "Virginia Euwer Wolff". harperCollins Publishers. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
^ ^a ^b "National Book Awards – 2001". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-01-26.
(With text acceptance speech by Wolff.)
^ "Virginia Euwer Wolff Wins 2011 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature" (PDF).
^ "An Interview with Don Gallo, My Life Thus Far". Virginia Euwer Wolff. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
^ "2011 NSK Neustadt Laureate Virginia Euwer Wolff". The Neustadt Prizes. 11 June 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
^ Wolff, Virginia Euwer (2012). "A Case of Time-Release Insight: The 2011 NSK Prize Lecture". World Literature Today. 86 (1): 46–52. doi:10.7588/worllitetoda.86.1.0046. JSTOR 10.7588/worllitetoda.86.1.0046. S2CID 163660990.
^ American Library Association (2007-07-30). "2002 Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Retrieved 2021-03-07.
^ "Phoenix Award Brochure 2012"^{[permanent dead link]}. Children's Literature Association. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
See also the current homepage, "Phoenix Award".
(With audio-video acceptance speech by Wolff.)