Legendary Editor Margaret K. McElderry Dies at 98
RSSBy Rocco Staino
The legendary Margaret K. McElderry, who was the first editor of children's books to be given her own imprint and whose career spanned more than 60 years, has died at the age of 98. McElderry began her career as a librarian after attending Carnegie Library School and worked at the New York Public Library for nine years under the famed Anne Carroll Moore. After serving in the war office in London during World War II, she returned to New York City and began her close to 30-year tenure as the first children's book editor at Harcourt, Brace. She became the first publisher to have her books win the two highest honors in children's literature in the same year, when in 1952 Finders Keepers (Harcourt, 1951) by Will Lipkind, with illustrations by Nicolas Mordvinoff, won the Caldecott and Ginger Pye (Harcourt, 1951) by Eleanor Estes won the Newbery. At the time, McElderry faced stiff competition with other strong female editors at different publishing houses, including Ursula Nordstrom at Harper & Row, Elizabeth Riley at Thomas Y. Crowell, and Mae Massie at Viking. During her 26 years at Harcourt, McElderry introduced American children to Mary Norton's "The Borrowers" series and Lucy Boston's The Children of Green Knowe. In 1971, Harcourt dismissed McElderry and most of her department. She soon ended up at Atheneum, which through a series of mergers became part of Simon & Schuster, where in 1972 she was named the director of Margaret K. McElderry Books. During her time there, McElderry was instrumental in publishing the books of Susan Cooper and formed a deep friendship with the writer. "It's very hard for me to say where the professional ends and the personal takes over." McElderry said of their relationship. "It stems from that core of her creativity." McElderry was selected for the Constance Lindsay Skinner Award (now called the Woman's National Book Association Award), received an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College, and a lifetime honorary membership in the International Board on Books for Young People. She was also winner of the Regina Medal, the Literary Market Place Corporate Award, the Hope S. Dean Memorial Award by the Foundation for Children's Books, the Curtis Benjamin Award for Creative Publishing by the Association of American Publishers, and the Northern California Children's Booksellers Association's Otter Award. In 1994, McElderry delivered the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture at the Coronado Public Library in California entitled, "Across the Years, Across the Seas: Notes from an Errant Editor." McElderry was born in 1912 in Pittsburgh, PA, to Northern Irish immigrant parents and attended Mount Holyoke College. She lived in New York City since 1934, and many of those years were spent in an apartment on Washington Square in Greenwich Village and during the summers in a cottage in Nantucket, MA. This article originally appeared in the newsletter Extra Helping. Go here to subscribe.
