And a very happy Free-For-All birthday celebration to Ann M. Martin, author of The Baby-Sitters Club series!
Ann Matthews Martin was born on this day in 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey. Her father, Henry Martin, was a respected cartoonist whose works appeared in The New Yorker, Ladies’ Home Journal, Punch, and others (you can see a collection of his work by clicking this link. Mr. Martin donated all his New Yorker cartoons to Princeton University’s Library, which gets him lots of brownie points in our books!). He also illustrated one of Ann’s books, Baby-sitters Super Special #6: New York, New York!
Ann Martin graduated from Smith College and began her career as a teacher before moving into publishing, where she worked as an editor for children’s books. Her first book, Bummer Summer was published in 1983.
In 1986, she was approached by Jean Feiwel of Scholastic, who had seen the success of a book called Ginny’s Babysitting Job, and realized there might be a market for similar books, aimed at girls between the ages of 8 to 12. Martin agreed to write a four book series, beginning with Kristy’s Great Idea, in which enterprising 13-year-old Kristy Thomas gathers her three friends together to start a club-slash-babysitting-business. The books did fairly well, leading Scholastic to order two more titles. And then twelve more titles. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The Baby-Sitters’ Club (or BSC, as we Children of the 90’s knew it) sold over 176 million books between that first book in 1986 and when the series ended in 2000. It also spawned multiple spin-off series, which featured the members of the Baby-Sitters’ Club itself (which grew to ten members in total), as well as their friends and siblings. There was also a TV show, which aired on HBO and Nickelodeon, as well as a film. The series got so big, in fact, that Scholastic had to hire ghostwriters for the series to keep fans happy. Though Martin estimates that she wrote between 60 and 80 of the books herself, a number of authors, both known and unknown, have been a part of The Baby-Sitters’ Club at one time or another.
One of my own favorite memories of attending Smith was when Ann M. Martin came to speak at Neilson Library. As an ardent BSC fan (I wrote Ann M. Martin a fan letter in 1993), I was determined to meet the woman who had shaped so much of my reading experiences through grade school, so I got there an hour early. The room was already full. I was lucky enough to get a seat on the window sill, and proceeded to haul late-comers in through said window so that they could hear the talk, as well. The Fire Marshall wasn’t best pleased with us, but I don’t think there is any greater testament to the power of books to unite readers of all ages, than that night.
So a very happy birthday to Ann M. Martin. And behalf of all of us: Thank you!
And now, on to some other books that may just change your life, too!
To the Bright Edge of the World: Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel, The Snow Child, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, so expectations were quite high for this, her second release. So far, it seems that it has more than lived up to those expectations. Set during the winter of 1885, the book tells the tale of Colonel Allen Forrester, a decorated war hero, who leaves his newly pregnant wife Sophie, to accomplish the impossible–to cross the Wolverine River and explore the wilds of Alaska Territory. He pledges to keep a diary of his trip, to leave some record behind for Sophie, in case he doesn’t make it back. Meanwhile, Sophie herself finds herself tested in ways she never dreamed, and begins to discover the science and art of photography as a way to express herself and claim her place in it. The record that these two remarkable people leave behind is one that readers are adoring, and that Publisher’s Weekly called “An entrancing, occasionally chilling, depiction of turn-of-the-century Alaska…In this splendid adventure novel, Ivey captures Alaska’s beauty and brutality, not just preserving history, but keeping it alive.”
Red Right Hand: Levi Black’s debut novel is a little bit horror and a little bit urban fantasy, with a dash of Lovecraft, and a whole lot of imagination, and has the makings of a sensational series. His heroine is Charlie Tristan Moore, a woman who has survived plenty already in life, but nothing can prepare her for the night when she is ambushed by three skin hounds, and rescued by a Man in Black, with a long, dark coat (which I want, very badly), and a fearsome secret: he is an Elder God, and requires Charlie’s services as his Acolyte, using the dark magic she never knew she had, in order to destroy his fellow Elder Gods. And he’s taking her best friend Daniel as collateral. Charlie is told that humanity hangs in the balance–but is she really serving its savior, or its destroyer? Library Journal says of this series opener: “Fans of dark fantasy and horror in full and gory detail will be entranced by this debut novel.”
These Honored Dead: Abraham Lincoln–he was the 16th president, he was a vampire hunter, and now, in Jonathan Putnam’s new mystery, he’s fighting crime on the American frontier! Apparently inspired by true events, this book centers around young Joshua Speed, the second-son of a plantation owner, who is determined to make his own way in the world. But when an orphaned girl is found murdered, Joshua is determined to see justice done…and who better to help him than his new friend, and newly-minted lawyer, Abraham Lincoln? Speed was indeed a real person and a lifelong friend of Lincoln’s, and his brother served as the US Attorney General in 1864, and in bringing him, and Lincoln, to life in this book, Putnam is drawing comparison’s to Caleb Carr’s classic historical mystery The Alienist–high praise indeed! Library Journal agrees, calling this book a “well-researched debut mystery… Eye-opening historical details on hunting runaway slaves and 19th-century poorhouses will interest readers who enjoy works by Caleb Carr and E.L. Doctorow.”
Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets: Speaking of comparisons, journalist Luke Dittrich’s debut non-fiction book has been drawing comparisons to Oliver Sack and Stephen King, two names that will always grab my attention. In 1953, a 27-year-old man named Henry Molaison–a factory worker, and severe epileptic–received a radical new form of lobotomy that was intended to eliminate his seizures. The surgery was a failure, and left Henry unable to produce any long-term memories. For the next sixty years, Henry became a kind of human science experiement, as doctors used his unique condition to study the brain, how it works, and how it remembers. Luke Dittrich’s grandfather was the man who performed Henry’s lobotomy, and his book is not just about the two men, but the medical system that brought them together, and a contemplation of the brain and the mind, and what it really means to be human. Chilling and fascinating by turns, this book is being hailed as a triumph from all corners, with Kirkus Reviews declaring, “Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King in a piercing study of one of psychiatric medicine’s darker hours. . . . A mesmerizing, maddening story and a model of journalistic investigation.”
Adnan’s Story: Fans of NPR’s phenomenally successful Serial heard about Adnan Syed, who was convicted and sentenced to life plus thirty years for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, a high school senior in Baltimore, Maryland. Adnan maintained his innocence throughout his trial and imprisonment, and Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, contacted produced Sarah Koenig at NPR, hoping she could shed light on the case. The result was a Peabody Award-winning podcast that attracted over 500,000 listeners. Not only does Chaudry’s book detail Adnan’s life story, his experiences in prison, and the recording of Serial, but claims to have new evidence that will thoroughly defeat the case against Adnan. Fans of Serial and newcomers to the story will find plenty to enjoy here, and, as the Los Angeles Times notes, “It was easy to forget, listening to ‘Serial,’ that it was a true story about real people. Adnan’s Story adds context and humanizes it in a way that could change how you think about the case, and about ‘Serial’ itself.”
Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!