Michael Bedard

Michael Bedard (born June 26, 1949 in Toronto ) is a Canadian writer .

Life

Bedard grew up in Toronto and studied philosophy and English at the University of Toronto . He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1971 . He then worked as a librarian at St. Michael's College (University of Toronto) and from 1978 as an employee in a small printing company, which he came to a publisher for his first two books ( Woodsedge and Other Tales and Pipe and Pearls ). He began writing after being introduced to the works of Emily Dickinson and TS Eliot by his former teacher .

Bedard lives in Toronto. He is active as an author of novels, biographies and retelling of famous fairy tales. He has received several Canadian book awards.

Woodsedge and Other Tales

After Bedard had also devoted himself to writing his own poems for around 10 years, he published his first book that was specifically aimed at a young group of readers. Woodsedge and Other Tales , like Pipe and Pearls, is a collection of “fairy tales”. Since he was working in a small print shop at that time, where he was busy with the layout and production of books, he had the idea to publish one himself. The illustrations for a book played an important role for him. He made notes on the pictorial ideas and based the plot on them.

Emily

The picture book Emily, which Bedard designed together with Barbara Cooney, tells the story of a little girl who lives in the immediate vicinity of the public-shy Emily Dickinson. The story begins shortly after the girl and her parents moved into the house across from the Dickinsons, where Emily lives with her sister. When the Dickinsons invited the girl's mother to play the piano for them in the spring, the child began to look around the house. Here she meets Emily and exchanges two lily bulbs with her for the poem that Emily has just written to the sounds of the music. Both keep their gifts a secret until they bloom at the end of the story.

Publications (selection)

• Woodsedge and Other Tales. Gardenshore Press, Toronto 1979, ISBN 0-920134-02-5 .
• Pipe and Pearls. Gardenshore Press, Toronto 1980, ISBN 0-920134-03-3 .
• A darker magic. Atheneum, New York 1987, ISBN 0-689-31342-X .
• The Lightening Bolt. Oxford University Press, Toronto 1989, ISBN 0-19-540732-6 .
• The Tinder Box. (Retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale Den lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne ) Oxford University Press, Toronto 1990, ISBN 0-19-540767-9 .
• Redwork. Atheneum, New York 1990, ISBN 0-689-31622-4 .
• The Nightingale. (Retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale Nattergalen ) Clarion Books, New York 1991, ISBN 0-395-60735-3 .
• with Barbara Cooney: Emily. (= A Doubleday book for young readers. ) Delacorte Press, New York 1992, ISBN 0-385-30697-0 .
• Painted Devil. Atheneum / Maxwell Macmillan International, New York 1994, ISBN 0-689-31827-8 .
• Glass Town: The Secret World of the Brontë Children . Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York 1997, ISBN 0-689-81185-3 .
• The Divide. (Chronicle of the life of Willa Cather ). Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub. Group, New York 1997, ISBN 0-385-32124-4 .
• The Clay Ladies. Tundra Books, Toronto 1999, ISBN 0-88776-385-5 .
• The Wolf of Gubbio. Stoddart Kids, Toronto / New York 2000, ISBN 0-7737-3250-0 .
• Stained glass. Tundra Books, Toronto / Plattsburgh 2001, ISBN 0-88776-552-1 .
• The Painted Wall and Other Strange Tales. (Adaptation to Liao-Chai by Pu Sung-ling ). Tundra Books, Toronto / Plattsburgh 2003, ISBN 0-88776-652-8 .
• William Blake: The Gates of Paradise. (Chronicle of the Life of William Blake ). Tundra Books, Toronto 2006, ISBN 0-88776-763-X .
• The Green Man. Tundra Books, Toronto 2012, ISBN 978-1-77049-511-1 .

Awards (selection)

Redwork

• 1990/91: Governor General's Literary Award , Canada; Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award for Children; IODE Violet Downey Book Award;

The Nightingale

• 1991: IODE Children's Book Award

The Clay Ladies

• 1999: IODE Children's Book Award

The Green Man

• 2013: IODE Violet Downey Book Award

literature

• The Storymakers: Writing Children's Books: 83 Authors Talk about Their Work. Pembroke Publishers, Portland / Markham 2000, ISBN 1-55138-108-7 , pp. 8/9. ( books.google.de )

Web links

• Michael Bedard at library.vicu.utoronto.ca (English)
• Michael Bedard (1949–) Biography on biography.jrank.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Michael Bedard on exodusbooks.com
2. ↑ Dave Jenkinson: A Bio on Michael Bedard. In: Emergency Librarian 19, No. 2 November / December 1991, ISSN  0315-8888 , p. 66 ff.
3. ^ The Storymakers: Writing Children's Books: 83 Authors Talk about Their Work. ISBN 1-55138-108-7 , pp. 8/9.
4. ↑ Jefferson Peters: Depicting Emily Dickinson: Michael Bedard and Barbara Cooney's Emily. (PDF, p. 3/791) on adm.fukuoka-u.ac.jp (English).
5. ↑ Michael Bedard - Redwork on canadianauthors.net.
6. ↑ Redwork on cla.ca.
7. ↑ ^{a b} IODE Violet Downey Book Award on iode.ca.
8. ↑ ^{a b} IODE (Toronto) Children's Book Award people.ucalgary.ca