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- Identifier
- wwu:24098
- Title
- Atwater - Mr. Popper's Penguins
- Date
- 1948-01-11
- Description
- One letter from Florence Atwater to Elizabeth Rider Montgomery. Mr. Popper's Penguins was a Newbery Honor book in 1939. Illustrated by Robert Lawson, the story continues to be enjoyed today.
- Digital Collection
- info:fedora/wwu:24050
- Type of resource
- Text
- Object custodian
- Special Collections
- Related Collection
- 20th century children's authors collection: writing about writing in letters and personal narratives
- Local Identifier
- 20thCCA_atwater
- Text preview (might not show all results)
- <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <mods xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <identifier type="local">20th Ce
- Transcript text preview (might not show all results)
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---------- 20th Century Children's Authors - Florence Atwater - Mr. Popper's Penguins ---------- ---------- 20thCCA_Atwater_01 ---------- 7861 South Shore Drive Chicago, Illinois January 11,
Show more---------- 20th Century Children's Authors - Florence Atwater - Mr. Popper's Penguins ---------- ---------- 20thCCA_Atwater_01 ---------- 7861 South Shore Drive Chicago, Illinois January 11, 1948 Miss Elizabeth R. Montgomery Seattle, Washington My dear Miss Montgomery: I am sorry to have been so long in answering you. I did get your questionnaire, but found it a little formidable. Indeed I did not know how to answer a good deal of it. However, I can probably answer the questions in your letter - at least about Mr. Popper's Penguin's. My husband has been hopelessly paralyzed for the last fourteen years - but the facts about his career before then you could probably dig out of some old Who's Who. When he was quite young he taught Greek at the University of Chicago (I was one of his students there, as a matter of fact) but he gave up the academic life for journalism. For a number of years he wrote a humorous column for the old Chicago Evening Post over the signature Riq. He used also to write articles for magazines. As for the genesis of the penguin book, it grew out of our seeing the Byrd movies of Antarctica expedition. We were so enchanted with the movies of the penguins that like Mr. Popper. We sat through the movie twice. My husband began the book shortly after - probably with our own two daughters in mind for the audience. He abandoned the manuscript, however, and I dug it out of his desk a couple of ---------- 20thCCA_Atwater_02 ---------- years after his stroke, and decided to finish it. (I had previously done a few short pieces for magazines myself). The original manuscript was much more of a fantasy than the final form: it was all a sort of dream. I rewrote the first few chapters and supplied a practical domestic background. The humorous chapters, such as the one where the repairman is called to bore holes in the icebox for the penguins, I left untouched. The last few chapters I had to supply entirely. Does this answer your questions? It is kind of you to be interested, and I am sorry to have been to slow in answering. Sincerely yours, Florence Atwater (Mrs. Richard Atwater)
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