Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Farewell, Lloyd Alexander

This is coming a bit late here, but for those who don't participate in the Mythsoc Yahoo! Group (where we have been discussing this), I wanted to note that Lloyd Alexander passed away a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, he lived a long life and wrote many wonderful books. I still read them today, and if you haven't, you should think about giving them a look. As Pauline Alama put it on the Mythsoc Group:
He seemed to be as lovely a person as he was an author, and his gentle world view is much needed in the times we're living through. I hope his books will continue to reach young readers for many years to come.
He meant a very great deal to me growing up. He will be missed.

3 comments:

  1. The Prydain quintet was a monument in my youthful discovery of fantastic literature, and among the first books I purchased for myself.

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  2. Me too. I have my fourth grade teacher, Miss Abdou, to thank for turning me onto them. A few years later (in the early 1980's), as I mentioned on the Mythsoc Group, I wrote to Lloyd Alexander, twice, even daring to send him some of my poems to read. He answered both letters warmly. What a wonderful man he was! :)

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  3. It's good to be able to record gestures like that. My young son wrote to Carol Kendall, author of The Gammage Cup and The Whisper of Glocken, and she replied, with much more than just a terse note. I hope that, if I were an author of children's books, I would have time for young letter writers. Of course, one couldn't blame a celebrity author like Rowling if she doesn't reply.

    I remember that when I was in my early teens, I found Tolkien's 76 Sandfield Road address in a reference book. I didn't write, though; I suppose I felt I didn't have anything to say that he wouldn't have seen already. Yet it seemed remarkable to me: to have seen the actual address of the great man, where he lived! :)

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