Mary Ann Hoberman has published dozens of rhyme-filled books aimed at encouraging children to read, especially aloud, and to help them remember poetry. died at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut on July 7. She was 92 years old.
Little Brown Books for Young Readers, which published many of her books, announced that she had died after a long illness without giving details.
Ms. Hoberman wrote poems about animals (“Lama Without Pajamas” is one of her classics), clothing, friendship, family, picky eaters, and many other subjects of interest to young people.
Megan Tingley, chairman of Little Brown Books for Young Readers, who has worked with her for more than 35 years, said, “She has the unusual in the ordinary: buttons and pennies, butter and jam. I had the talent to find it,” he said in a statement. . “She could write a poem about anything.”
Mr. Hoberman started his career with his feet. She has always liked to write light poetry and sent several poems to publishers in her mid-twenties. The result was her poem “All My Shoes Come in Twos” about her different types of shoes. Published in 1957, the work was illustrated by her husband, the architect Norman Hoberman.
California’s The Fresno Bee wrote that it was “easy to read and fun to hear read aloud” and that it “will appeal to petite women who are sensitive to clothing.”
Three other books, also illustrated by her husband, followed over the next five years and her career took off, eventually publishing over 50 books and another one next year. is about to be published.
Perhaps her most acclaimed book is the National Book Award-winning A House Is a House for Me (1978, illustrated by Betty Fraser). The poem touches on different kinds of homes, both for living things and for other things.
The barrel is the pickle house
And the bottle is the jam house.
The pot is where you put the potatoes.
Sandwiches are best with ham.
It ended with a leap from micro to macro.
Flowers are in the garden.
A donkey is in the stall.
Each known creature has its own home
And the earth is home for all of us.
Harold C.K. Rice, one of his admiring critics, wrote in his New York Times book review: And they all come together with a kind of mad enthusiasm. This book is a manic treasure trove of images and ideas. “
In addition to her own books, Ms. Hoberman has compiled poetry collections aimed at young readers, including Forget-me-nots: Poetry by Heart (2012, by Michael Emberly), a collection of works from a wide range of disciplines. . She has worked with poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Carl Sandberg, Emily Dickinson, and Elizabeth Cotesworth. It began with her own “poems for readers” and encouraged her children to make her poetry their own.
CHOOSE YOUR FAVORITE
from what you read
and let them live here
house in my head.
This house is called Memory,
everybody knows
And the more you put in,
The bigger it gets, the bigger it gets.
When the Poetry Foundation named her “Child Poet Laureate” in 2008, Hoberman retained the title until 2011, describing how she envisioned the role of poetry when she became a kind of poetry ambassador to young readers. told the Chicago Tribune.
“I don’t like it when my quatrains are in a teacher’s manual, three pages of how to use them throughout the curriculum, and are analyzed to death.” she says. “That’s not what poetry is for. It’s for joy.”
Mary Ann Friedman was born on August 12, 1930 in Stamford, Connecticut and was raised there. Her father, Milton, was a salesman and later businessman, and her mother, Dora (Miller) Friedman, was a homemaker.
“I was about four years old when I first realized that many of the stories I loved were not always here, like the moon and the sky, but were created by real people with real names. I think,” Hoberman said in an interview. on her website. “That’s when I decided that when I grew up, I would write stories that would be published in books for others to read.”
of 2008 interview Having worked with the Poetry Foundation, she said her books reflect moments from her childhood.
“I started writing when I had children of my own, but rather than observing them, I remembered what it was like to be a child myself,” she said.
She received her BA from Smith College in 1951 and her MA in English Literature from Yale University some 35 years later. She and Mr. Hoberman were married in 1951.
Among her other books, she is best known for The Seven Silly Eaters (1997, by Marla Frazee), which tells the story of a mother’s struggle to accommodate her children who eat only certain foods. ) is.
“Hoberman’s tumultuous tale is spun like a Susian fable,” wrote John Agee in The Times Book Review.
Ms. Hoberman also aims to read aloud by two people reading lines alternately or sometimes simultaneously, under the rubric “You read to me, I will read to you.” I wrote a series of books on
“Each rhymed short story in this book is like a little play for two voices,” she says, author of one of them, Very Short Stories Read Together (2001). wrote in the memo. The idea was to encourage reading aloud rather than just reading.
“I think my poetry starts at my feet.” Ms. Hoberman once said:. “There is nothing like a walk to start a poem. Strangely enough, walking with a steady rhythm allows new ideas to emerge and stay in your mind. Sometimes only the wordless rhythm has to find its language, but I know that once it does, sooner or later the poetry will follow.”
Hoberman’s husband died in 2015. She has four children, Diane Louie and Perry, and Chuck and Meg Hoberman. and six grandchildren.
In announcing Hoberman’s death, Hoberman’s publisher said she wrote the poem for her farewell party held days before she died. It ended with the line:
As a mother, as a sister, as a friend, as a wife,
I’ve lived a life of excellence
you made it happen
And now it’s time for me to go.
My time has come. The water surface is wide, isn’t it?
See you over there.
