Cynthia Voigt
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Cynthia Voigt (born February 25, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American author of children's literature. The former teacher and secretary has been writing since 1981 books for young adults dealing with various topics such as fantasy, mystery, racism and child abuse. Her first book, Homecoming, was nominated for several international prizes.
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[edit] Life and works
Born in Boston, Cynthia Voigt grew up in Connecticut, where she attended the Dana Hall School. She completed a degree in 1963 from Smith College in Massachusetts. Afterwards she taught high school English in Glen Burie and Annapolis, Maryland. In 1981, she began to write and later gave up teaching all together. Today, she lives with her husband and two children in Deer Isles in Maine.
In addition to novels independent from each other, she has created several chronologies:
[edit] The Kingdom
The vast majority of Voigt's work is marked by a contemporary or historical setting and a realistic style. The "Kingdom" books break from the former, being set in an unspecified but apparently invented region in a circa-medieval period of historical development. While the world is invented, however, it remains realistic in its construction, and resembles in most respects a historically faithful period setting, rather than a sword and sorcerer fairyland. What myths are present in the Kingdom are usually seen to have historical basis; the first novel, Jackaroo, deals with such a myth--a Robin Hood-like figure who is really just an archetype whose guise is donned by various nobles and commoners through the years.
The Kingdom books are connected by history and geography rather than the lifespan of any one character or family; though characters in later novels are sometimes descended from characters in earlier novels, their adventures are usually the stuff of myth or distant memory.
- Jackaroo (1985)
- On Fortune's Wheel (1990)
- The Wings of a Falcon (1993)
- Elske (1999)
[edit] Tillerman Cycle
The Tillerman Cycle follows the struggles of the eponymous family, beginning with Homecoming, in which one generation of Tillerman children is abandoned by their mother. The young four-some must find their way to their estranged grandmother, under the leadership of thirteen year old Dicey, the eldest sibling and main character of the series. Three of the books are, however, centered on other characters--The Runner follows Dicey's uncle, Bullet. Come a Stranger and A Solitary Blue cover some of the same territory as Dicey's Song from the perspectives of Mina and Jeff, respectively, who are two of Dicey's friends.
- Homecoming (1973)
- Dicey's Song (1982)
- A Solitary Blue (1983)
- The Runner (1985)
- Come a Stranger (1986)
- Sons from Afar (1987)
- Seventeen Against the Dealer (1989)
Throughout Voigt's novels, she taps into the emotional aspects of the struggles of the Tillerman children, as well as the other protagonists of her novels, making the Tillerman cycle a series of books appropriate for all ages.
[edit] Significance and awards
Cynthia Voigt has received the Newbery Medal for Dicey's Song and an Edgar Allan Poe Award for The Callender Papers. A Solitary Blue (1983) was named the Phoenix Award Honor Book for 2003.
