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I was born in the Bronx, but my family moved from New York before I could walk, so except for a year and a half when we
lived in Youngstown, Ohio, I did all of my growing up in small towns in Pennsylvania—Phoenixville in the east and Farrell in the west.
After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, I did graduate work in organic chemistry at the University of
Pittsburgh. While there, I twice blew up the laboratory sink. (Above the sink were two huge carboys equipped with siphons and pinch clamps. One contained distilled water; the other, acetone. They
were for cleaning glassware. Both times I mistook one—you can guess which—for the other.)
After my husband, David, got his doctorate in psychology, we moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where all three of my children were
born and where I taught science at a private girls' school. I did not start to write until after we had moved from Jacksonville to the suburbs of New York and the third of my three children started
school.
I have always loved the English language, but all the while that I was studying/researching/teaching science, I never dreamed that
that love would evolve into my becoming a children's book writer.
I hope that all of my books reflect the love and respect that I have for the English language, but there are a couple that really
spotlight it.
First, there is From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. When Claudia corrects Jamie's grammar, which she does
often, she is really doing it for me. Because when I am out in public, and I hear someone say, "Lorelei invited Mother and I," I want to scream ". . . Mother and me. Me! Me! Me! What is wrong with me?"
I am not asking for a psychological evaluation, I am simply asking, What is wrong with the objective case of I? But I hold my tongue because I have Claudia to speak for me.
Tallulah, the ghost of an old actress who is an important character in Up from Jericho Tel, also wonders what is wrong with me. At
one point she says, "Never have a long conversation with anyone who says between you and I." Actually, Tallulah is quite possibly my best mouthpiece for proper use of the English language. It
is she who boldly states, "I adore the English language." She offers the following advice: says, "Always use good grammar. It's like wearing designer clothing. People may not like your style, but
they will pay attention to the cut of your cloth." Tallulah explains how much words matter to her when she tells my heroine, Jeanmarie, why she did not marry the man who gave her the magnificent
diamond brooch called the Regina Stone. "I could do nothing to improve that man's vocabulary. Instead of telling me that I was alluring, glamorous, mysterious, and enchanting, he insisted upon
referring to me as his jolly good girl. I told him I was none of those four things. I was not his, not jolly, not good, and I certainly was no girl."
Up from Jericho Tel was written after we moved back to Florida, as have been all my books except the first two. My newest book, The Outlaws of 19 Schuyler Place,
which will be published in the spring of 2004, was written in a loft over a garage where when I look forward, I face a marsh and my computer, and if I turn around and look over the rooftops, I see
the Atlantic Ocean. I love them all: the marsh, the ocean, and the words on my computer that allow me to tell you how much. •
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About the Author:
E. L. Konigsburg is the only author to have won the Newbery Medal and been runner-up in the same year. In 1968,
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler won the medal, and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabethe was named Honor Book. Almost thirty
years later, she won the Newbery Medal once again for The View from Saturday. She has also written and illustrated three picture books: Samuel Todd's Book of Great Colors, Samuel
Todd's Book of Great Inventions, and Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdale's.
Books by E. L. Konigsburg:
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Atheneum, 1967)
• Father's Arcane Daughter (MacMillan, 1979)
• T-Backs, T-Shirts, Coat, and Suit (Atheneum, 1993)
• The View from Saturday (Atheneum, 1996)
• Silent to the Bone (Atheneum BFYR, 2000)
To contact this author or illustrator, please use the information for his or her publisher provided on our list of CBC member publishers.
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