Leon Archibald
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Location | Tiverton, RI |
| Introduction | Usually, I answer the question, How did you get interested in children's books? by saying, I never stopped reading them! But that is not actually true. The way that it really came about was that, in high school, a friend of mine gave me a copy of The Little Prince in English. (I had just tried to read it in French class and failed.) This book, though not originally written as a children's book, kindled my lifelong interest in stories that are about and for children. So at the same time that I was reading Tolkien and Bradbury I was also reading L'Engle and Speare. In college I worked in the campus bookstore; and, because of my interest in children's books, I began to work in that section of the store. In 1979 I moved to New York City, worked for Doubleday Bookshops, and then began a short career in children's book publishing. Simon&Schuster, Putnam, Dodd, Mead and The Children's Book Council. In 1991 I moved my family to Provo, UT and managed the children's book section in my old college bookstore. Recently we moved to the east coast again and are now settled in Rhode Island in a picturesque village along the Sakonnet River. |
| Favorite Books | Where the Wild Things Are, written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak is my favorite picture book. Favorite children's novels are: The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare, KneeKnock Rise and Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones, The Mouse and his Child by Russell Hoban, A Stranger Came Ashore by Mollie Hunter, Beauty by Robin McKinley. My favorite novel as a young reader was King of the Wind, the Story of the Godolphin Arabian, by Marguerite Henry. |