The Best Seller

J.K. Rowling

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M C C R A C K E N C O U N T Y P U B L I C L I B R A R Y , P A D U C A H , K YM A R C H 2 0 2 0

Women's History: The JF Books Issue

The Harry Potter series has sold more than 500 million copies making it the best-selling series of all time and making Rowling one of the top ten bestselling authorsof all time (BTW...Shakespeare is number one). Her success is so great that she'smoved beyond being just an author of books and into the realm of being a culturalforce. The World of Harry Potter is nothing short of being a global empire.

Before she was a household name, however, Rowling was a teacher andstruggling writer who was trying to sell her very first Harry Potter book. Thepublisher she found liked the book but was afraid that young boys wouldn't want toread a book written by a woman. They encouraged her to use her initials instead ofher real name, so the readers wouldn't know she was a woman. The "J" stands forJoanne, her real first name. The problem was that Joanne Rowling had no middlename, so she picked "K" to stand for Kathleen which was her grandmother's name. Looking back, it's hard to believe that someone as talented and successful asJoanne Rowling was ever asked to not use her real name. Have things in the last20+ years? I hope so.

Historically, women's voices haven't alwaysbeen equally represented in publishing.Ignored and underrepresented are two

words that come to mind. While there are still many strides to make toward equal representation, the female voice in literature can no longer beignored. The voice is strong, compassionate, funny, adventurous, and meaningful, and nowhere is that more evidentthan in the Juvenile Fiction section. The women writers mentioned in this issue are some of the most powerful voices

in all of literature, and for everyone that is highlighted, there are a dozens more that could be named.

J.K. Rowlling reading fromher book at the White House.

Puppy Place

Mildred Wirt Benson is one of the most widely readchildren's authors of all time. She wrote more than 75children's books, mostly mysteries featuring younggirls. Her work has been read by millions. We still have23 of her books on our shelves at the library. So, you'd think she'd be one of the most famouschildren's writers of all time, and yet, very few peoplehave heard of her. Why does she still remain a mystery? Benson did most of her writing in the 1930s and 40sworking for a company called the StratemeyerSyndicate which published popular children's serieslike Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins. Benson washired as a ghostwriter, which means she wascontracted to write books under a fake name. Benson wrote dozens of books for Stratemeyer buther most famous were written under the name CarolineKeene, the fake name used for the author of the NancyDrew. Mildred Wirt Benson is now recognized as beingthe author of the first 23 books in the Nancy Drewseries. In essence, Benson created the character.

A former writing teacher once told Rachel Renee Russell thatif she was thinking about a career in writing that maybe sheshould think again. Russell became a bankruptcy lawyer, butwhen her two daughters, Nikki and Erin, went off to college,Russell went back to writing. Using her own experiencesgrowing up, as well as her daughters' experiences, Russellcreated Nikki Maxwell and the Dork Diaries series. In aninterview with the New York Times, Russell said, “I never hada date through high school, and my father had to pay a familyfriend $50 and loan him the Cadillac to get me a date for theprom." Well, all that dorkiness certainly paid off. Russell'sbooks have sold nearly 40 million copies and been translatedinto dozens of languages.

Thanna Lai66%

  H A V E A N Y Q U E S T I O N S O R S U G G E S T I O N S ? E M A I L M A T T A T M J A E G E R @ M C L I B . N E T  M A R C H 2 0 2 0

RachelRenee

Russell -Lawyer

and DorkDiarist

Every year since 1922, the American Library Associationgives the Newberry Award to the author who contributedthe most significant work to children's literature. To date,98 Newberry awards have been given out, and 65 of those98 were awarded to female writers. That means that 66%,or roughly two-thirds, of all Newberrys have beenawarded to women! Here's just of a few of those brilliantbooks you can find on our shelves.

The Giver by Lois LowryThe One and Only Ivan by Katherine ApplegateThe Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine PatersonSarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia McLaughlinFrom the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E.Frankweiler by E.L. KonigsburgM. C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia HamiltonDear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly ClearyShiloh by Phyllis Reynolds NaylorThe Westing Game by Ellen RaskinMerci Suárez Changes Gears by Meg MedinaJulie of the Wolves by Jean CraigheadWitch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George SpeareA Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'EngleStrawberry Girl by Lois LenskiThe Tale of Despereaux by Kate Dicamillo

Who was MildredWirt Benson?

Photo by Rhododendrites - Ownwork, CC BY-SA 4.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79475999

As a child, Thanna Lai was a refugee. She and her family had to flee fromtheir homes in Vietnam during theVietnam War. They came to the UnitedStates and ultimately settled inAlabama. Can you imagine how difficultand scary that must have been...havingto leave your home in Saigon during awar and ending up in Alabama? Laitook her childhood experience andused it as the basis for her first book forchildren, Inside Out and BackAgain. That book went on to win theNational Book Award! Lai is also theauthor of the books Listen, Slowly andButtefly Yellow.

Want to win a beautiful set of classic books byfemale writers, including Little Women, Heidi, A

Little Princess, and Anne of Green Gables? Look fordetails on how to enter on the JF display.