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

over somebody too much because that would be terrible, but it's very

exciting to see someone come along that way. I'm so blessed with Emma

and Tracey. It gives you such joy to see someone who cares this much.

Tracey loves publishing and she works so hard and knows what she's

doing and I can trust her with everything.

McElderry nurtures her relationship as warmly as she recalls being nurtured - and it is clear from frequent allusions that her own mother played a significant role in shaping McElderry's aesthetic sensibilities, even in mundane everyday aspects such as dressing: "I feel sure that having clothes bought for a child by her mother is an important early factor in the development of taste. In my case, we bought clothes that were never gimmicky, that would not go out of style quickly. In other words, a certain sense of values underlay the decision to buy. Something classic was preferred over something faddish" (Unpublished speech for "The Educated Eye"). Although this remark refers to the foundations of McElderry's artistic perception, she also tells of early encounters with narrative while begging her mother to tell a story.

My mother was a real reader, meshed into this whole world of books

and stories. She had been a teacher and loved working with children.

She used to do volunteer work in New York in a settlement

house. She somehow knew a lot of the old folktales, and when she

would be gardening I can remember following her around, and she'd

dig up worms, and I couldn't bear worms, and I'd have to get out of

the way, and she'd tell a story, but it would be endless because she'd

get involved in her digging and planting, and I'd say "Go on, go on,

what happens next?" And then she'd pick up and go on.

Process and Product

The question of what happens next is central to the literary process that McElderry so intricately negotiates and is more complex than it may seem. Just as readers often read to discover what happens next, writers often write to discover what happens next. The exception is formula fiction, in which it is all too clear what's going to happen next; writers receive tip sheets from publishers outlining the narrative requirements of a series and readers brook little variance. Most serious writers, however, experience surprise as the story takes on a life of its own, surprise as to what happens, how it happens, and to whom. It is perhaps this element of surprise to which McElderry refers when she singles out the element most important to her selection of manuscripts:

It's something that makes me sit up, not literally but figuratively. I

feel myself suddenly sitting up very straight thinking oh, there's something

here. That something obviously has to be different in each

manuscript, and yet I suppose the criteria are basically the same: a

quality to the writing, and then I suspect it's often a character who

begins to catch your attention, so that you're interested enough to

want to know who this person is and what's going to happen. And in

fiction, which is mostly what I've published, there has to be very