Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children

by Susan Cooper

Book Overview

This is an outstanding collection of most of the major speeches given by Susan Cooper--internationally acclaimed author of The Dark Is Rising sequence of books--from her Newbery Award acceptance speech in 1976 to the present, including the Anne Carroll Moore Lecture in 1988. They give remarkable insights into the wellspring of creative writing as well as into the author's personal life and background.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689807368
• ISBN13: 9780689807367
• Release Date: May 1996
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Length: 198 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 13 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 8 to 12

Customer Reviews

The musings of a highly intelligent mind

Susan Cooper is probably best known for writing the superb Dark Is Rising sequence of five children's novels, one of which garnered the Newbery Medal and another a Newbery Honor. This book, however, is not fiction but about fiction, at least primarily. The essays and speeches contained here discuss experiences from Cooper's own childhood (in World War II England), the piercing nostalgia brought on by finding a new copy of a long-beloved though mostly-forgotten storybook, the author's experiences with the theater (and friendship with Jessica Tandy), and many other topics. The tone is often introspective, but never arrogant, and the book can be read in segments or in a single sitting. Definitely worthwhile for anyone with the slightest interest in children's literature . . . there is far more here than one might expect.