Irene Hunt

Irene Hunt has said that among the abilities a writer for children must have is "a close affinity with his own childhood... He must remember the anxieties and uncertanties..." The ability is displayed in her own books: A Trail of Apple Blossoms; the award-winning Across Five Aprils; and No Promises in the Wind; and Up a Road Slowly, winner of the 1967 John Newberry Award. She also puts to use the advice of one of her own characters in Up A Road Slowly -- to "write of things you know about, things you've experiences, things that have touched you deeply." The book reflects the death of her own father when she was very young, and drawsn on an early childhood spend on a farm and later years teaching in the public school system of Illinois. Having degrees from the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota, Miss Hunt also attended the University of Colorado for advanced graduate work in psychology. A lover of travel, she was born in Newton, Illinois, and lives now in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she indulges a flair for cooking and refinishing old furniture. -- liner notes, NAR 3031