Margaret K. McElderry and the professional matriarchy of children's books - Imagination and Scholarship: The Contributions of Women to American Youth Services and Literature

Library Trends, Spring, 1996 by Betsy Hearne

Bechtel in her later years, and Bertha Mahoney Miller of the

New York Herald Tribune and The Horn Book, respectively, visited from

time to time. (McElderry, 1992, pp. 160-61)

In paying tribute to the women's web, McElderry also recalls how subversive were many of the individuals:

Elizabeth Nesbitt always frothed at the mouth because it was a period

when young men were being made directors of libraries and

women infinitely now more competent were being passed over or put

second in command. She was feisty. She made no bones about what

she thought of this sexism, and she was right. We all loved it and we

all felt the way she did and egged her on, of course....I don't remember

her saving anything like this in classes because she taught

storytelling and children's literature, but in conversation with her - I

can see her face now - she had a terrific sense of humor, very dry,

and these remarks would come out all the time. And you knew precisely

what she meant. She was irreverent and it was very refreshing.

International Network: A Community Extended

The women's web is a worldwide web. Beginning with McElderry's awareness of other cultures through her parents' immigrant experience and her childhood trips to Ireland, she has crossed cultural boundaries with lifelong regularity. She refers often to the international aspects of visitors in Anne Carroll Moore's office ("Dr. Valfrid Munch-Peterson from Denmark was one such visitor who came more than once. She spent a lot of time studying our ways of working and then started something similar in Denmark" [McElderry, 1992, p. 161]); the importance of observing young and old immigrant patrons who crowded the New York Public Library; and the refugee artists and authors whom she met prior to World War II. It was through an Italian-American storyteller, Maria Cimino, in the 42nd Street Library (now the Donnell branch of the NYPL) that she met the author of the 1952 Caldecott Award book; Will Lipkind was married to Cimino and was a close friend of Nicolas Mordvinoff's.

After her work with the Office of War Information in London and Brussels during World War II, McElderry became one of the first children's book editors to make regular scouting trips to European publishers, writers, and artists. She was the first woman ever invited to lunch in the board room of Macmillan's in London - and this was the 1950s (McElderry, 1994, p. 374). Once international book fairs, such as in Bologna, were established, she became an enthusiastic participant, but her co-publishing network had already been well established, as was her supportive involvement with the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) (she served as a member of the Executive Committee of IBBY for several years as well as vice-president and president of the U.S. national section).

A meeting with the Empress of japan in 1995 serves as a good example of an honor preceded by years of active web-weaving with professional women. It started in 1975 when McElderry published The Maggie B. with lyrical illustrations by Irene Haas. In 1978, Haas's book won the Owl Prize, a Japanese picture book award organized by Hisako Aoki for the nationwide chain of Maruzen Bookstores. In 1981, Haas again won the Owl Prize for her art in Carrie Hepple's Garden, written by Ruth Craft (1979), and McElderry traveled with Haas to japan, meeting children's librarians, publishers, and writers. Among them were Tayo Shima, whom McElderry later introduced to Sybille Jagusch and who subsequently cataloged the Japanese children's books in the Library of Congress for a special exhibit, and Chieko Suemori. Through the years, McElderry's friendships deepened with these women and with Yoko Inokuma, who served on the executive committee of IBBY. Based on this long-term association-McElderry also served as a UNESCO consultant in a Tokyo meeting for Asian children's publications - it was only natural that Tayo Shima approach McElderry at the 1990 IBBY Congress in Williamsburg and ask her to look at a collection of the well-known poet Michio Mado's work translated by the Empress Michiko, whom Tayo had known for about thirty years since childhood (the Empress was a commoner before marrying into the imperial family). McElderry was impressed with the translated poetry, which Mitsumasa Anno (who won the 1984 Hans Christian Andersen Illustrator Award and whom McElderry had previously met in Japan) wanted to illustrate. In 1992, she published the book entitled The Animals, which contributed to an IBBY jury's selection of Mado for the Hans Christian Andersen Author Award in 1994. McElderry's meeting with the Empress at an Ambassador's reception led to the honor of an invitation to Japan for a private meeting with the Empress in 1995, but the foundation had already been laid by twenty years of sisterly networking.