SOURCE CITATION
"Elizabeth George Speare." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
Photograph provided by Houghton Mifflin.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Elizabeth George Speare won some of the most prestigious awards in young adult literature for her novels of historical fiction, including two coveted Newbery Awards. She was known for creating believable characters who rely on their inner strength to cope with the challenges they face. Speare's favorite time period to write about was pre-Revolutionary America, although one of her most acclaimed books was set during Jesus's lifetime in Galilee. She has been especially praised for her ability to merge historical fact with the fiction of her storylines--a skill which came from hours of meticulous research.

Speare's childhood was spent in Massachusetts, and she lived in New England her entire life. In her later writing, Speare reflected that it was easy for her to revisit Colonial times, since many areas of New England look the same now as they did then. About her childhood, Speare commented in Current Biography: "I had an exceptionally happy home. My mother was a very wonderful woman of great understanding." Her family would take her and her only brother on hikes and picnics in the woods, or to Boston to the theater or concerts. In the summer, they retreated to the shore, where she and her brother often would be the only children around. "I had endless golden days to read and think and dream," Speare wrote in More Junior Authors. "It was then that I discovered the absorbing occupation of writing stories."

As a child, Speare filled scores of notebooks with stories and poems. She had a large extended family that would meet often for reunions and dinners. At these events, she and a close cousin would greet each other heartily, then sequester themselves in an out-of-the-way place to share the stories each of them had written. Even when adults would shake their heads in dismay over their activity, the girls would not be discouraged. Years later, when the two visited each other at college, they would carry their notebooks with them to share their stories as they had done when they were children.

Speare attended Boston University, earning a master's degree in 1932. She taught high school for a while and married Alden Speare in 1936. The couple moved to Connecticut and had two children. Speare settled into family life, finding that she had little time for writing with her many duties and activities. "Once in a while I would catch a story of my own peeking out of a corner of my mind," she related in More Junior Authors. "But before I found time to sit down with a pencil and paper it would have scurried back out of sight."

When her children were both in junior high school, Speare found more time to write. At first, she worked on feature articles about family events like skiing or wrapping Christmas presents. Soon Speare found her niche when she published an article in American Heritage about the Smith sisters of Colonial Glastonbury, who refused to pay taxes and had their land confiscated. This article was adapted into a television program.

After reading a history of Connecticut, Speare found a diary written by one Susanna Johnson, dating from 1807. The diary told the intriguing story of her family's kidnapping by Indians, who eventually traded them to the French. From this tragic tale, Speare crafted a full-length novel entitled Calico Captive. Speare was haunted not only by the writer of the diary, but also by her sister, Miriam, whose adventures she made up and recorded. Ultimately a well-rounded character emerged. Margaret Sherwood Libby in the New York Herald Tribune Book Review praised the work, saying: "It is that rarity in historical novels, one that does not seem to be written to provide 'background' but to tell a good story."

For her next book, Speare turned to Wethersfield, Connecticut, the town where she and her husband had resided for twenty years. It was one of the oldest towns in New England, with a rich history. Instead of finding a key event to write about, characters began to form in Speare's mind. "Each of these people began to take on sharper outlines, individual dimensions, and they were already moving and talking and reaching out in relationship to each other, long before I had found a place for them to live or a time in which they could be born. Finally I was compelled to find a home for them," Speare related in her Laura Ingalls Wilder Award acceptance speech, published in Horn Book. The home she found for them was in her book The Witch of Blackbird Pond, published in 1958. This captivating tale focuses on Kit Tyler, a native of Barbados who befriends a Quaker woman and is later accused of being a witch. The book won the Newbery Medal by a unanimous vote of the judges.

Speare stepped out of Connecticut to write her next novel, The Bronze Bow. The story centers on the boy Daniel, an Israeli who hates the Romans who have taken over his land. He eventually comes to find peace and acceptance through the teachings of Jesus. Speare wanted to write this novel to show young children that Jesus could be a real, living character, and she won a second Newbery for this ambitious book.

In The Sign of the Beaver, Speare returned to Colonial New England to tell a memorable tale about a young boy whose life is saved by an Indian youth. The boys form a friendship, and Matt tries to teach Attean to read and learn the white man's ways. However, Matt soon learns more about the Indians' ways and begins to question his own beliefs. Jean Fritz commented in the New York Times Book Review that "as usual in Mrs. Speare's novels, each word rings true." Reviewing the sound recording of The Sign of the Beaver, a contributor for Publishers Weekly called it a "gripping . . . novel about a boy's adventures in the wilderness of 1768." The Sign of the Beaver won the Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction, as well as a Christopher Award.

In 1989, Speare received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for her contribution to children's literature. She established her reputation through only a few books, but each one is noted for its quality. In an acceptance speech for one of her Newbery Medals, published in Horn Book, Speare asserted her feelings about writing: "I believe that all of us who are concerned with children are committed to the salvaging of Love and Honor and Duty. . . . (children) look urgently to the adult world for evidence that we have proved our values to be enduring." She challenged other authors and herself by concluding that "those of us who have found love and honor and duty to be a sure foundation must somehow find words which have the ring of truth."

Speare died in 1994, but her works live on, having become classics in the classroom. Though her output was small--only four young adult historical novels, two nonfiction books, and one adult novel--Speare made a deep impact on young adult literature as well as on historical fiction. An acknowledged master of the genre, Speare made history more palatable to young readers without distorting fact for the purposes of fiction.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born November 21, 1908, in Melrose, MA; died of an aortic aneurysm, November 15, 1994, in Tucson, AZ; daughter of Harry Allan (an engineer) and Demetria (Simmons) George; married Alden Speare (an industrial engineer), September 26, 1936; children: Alden, Jr., Mary Elizabeth. Education: Attended Smith College, 1926-27; Boston University, A.B., 1930, M.A., 1932. Memberships: Authors Guild, Authors League of America.

CAREER
Writer, 1955--. Rockland High School, Rockland, MA, teacher of English, 1932-35; Auburn High School, Auburn, MA, teacher of English, 1935-36.