E. L. Konigsburg

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Elaine Lobl Konigsburg (born February 10, 1930) is an American author of children's books, and two time winner of the Newbery Medal for children's literature. She is the only author to have won the Newbery Medal and been runner-up in the same year, with her second and first books respectively: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Kongisburg won the Newbery Medal again in 1997 with her book The View from Saturday.

[edit] Biography

Elaine Konigsburg was born in the Bronx, New York City, but grew up in Phoenixville and Farrell, small mill towns in Pennsylvania. She was the middle of three daughters, her parents were business people. After graduating high-school first in her class, she worked briefly as a bookkeeper in a wholesale meat plant to earn money for college. One of the owners had a brother named David Konigsburg, who would later become her husband.

Konigsburg was the first member of her family to receive a college education, a degree in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University. She graduated with honors, and married David. She then began studying for her master's degree in chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, where she twice blew up the laboratory sink and decided she did not have the temperament to be a chemist.

When her husband received his Doctorate in Psychology, they moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where Konigsburg worked as a science teacher at a private school for girls. But she realized she was "more interested in what was going on inside my students' heads than what was going on inside the test tubes". Shortly after she stopped teaching, her son Paul was born, followed by Laurie and Ross.

She did not start to write until her family moved to the suburbs of New York and the youngest of her three children had started kindergarten. Around this time Konigsburg also started taking classes in drawing and painting, and won prizes for her artwork. Some of her books are illustrated with her own drawings. She currently lives in a house on the beach in North Florida near Jacksonville.

She lists her favorite authors as Louisa May Alcott and Frances Hodgson Burnett.

[edit] Partial list of books by E.L. Konigsburg

• 1967 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, winner of the 1968 Newbery medal, 1968 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and 1970 William Allen White Children's Book Award
• 1967Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth; 1968 Newbery Honor book
• 1969 About the B'nai Bagels
• 1970 (George)
• 1971 Altogether, One at a Time
• 1973 A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, about Eleanor of Aquitaine
• 1974 The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper
• 1975 The Second Mrs. Gioconda, about Leonardo Da Vinci
• 1976 Father's Arcane Daughter, made into the Hallmark movie Caroline?
• 1979 Throwing Shadows
• 1982 Journey to an 800 Number
• 1986 Up from Jericho Tel
• 1990 Samuel Todd's Book of Great Colors, a picture book, written and illustrated by Konigsburg
• 1991 Samuel Todd's Book of Great Inventions, a picture book, written and illustrated by Konigsburg
• 1992 Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdale's, a picture book, written and illustrated by Konigsburg
• 1993 T-Backs, T-Shirts, COAT, and Suit
• 1995 TalkTalk
• 1996 The View from Saturday, winner of the 1997 Newbery medal
• 2000 Silent to the Bone
• 2004 The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place