Betsy Byars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Byars

Betsy Byars (née Cromer; August 7, 1928 – February 26, 2020) was an American author of children's books. Her novel Summer of the Swans won the 1971 Newbery Medal. She has also received a National Book Award for Young People's Literature for The Night Swimmers (1980) and an Edgar Award for Wanted ... Mud Blossom (1991).

Byars has been called "one of the ten best writers for children in the world" by Nancy Chambers, editor of the British literary journal Signal, and in 1987 Byars received the Regina Medal for lifetime achievement from the Catholic Library Association. Due to the popularity of her books with children, she was listed as one of the Educational Paperback Association's top 100 authors.

Biography

Betsy Cromer Byars was born August 7, 1928, in Charlotte, North Carolina to George Guy, a cotton mill executive, and Nan (née Rugheimer) Cromer, a homemaker. Her childhood was spent during the Great Depression. She attended Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, from 1946 to 1948, before transferring to Queens College in Charlotte, where she graduated in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in English.

After graduating, Cromer met Edward Ford Byars, a graduate student in engineering at Clemson University, and they married on June 24, 1950. They had three daughters and a son between 1951 and 1958: Laurie, Betsy Ann, Nan, and Guy. In 1956, the family moved from Clemson, South Carolina, to Urbana, Illinois, where Edward pursued further graduate work at the University of Illinois, eventually becoming a professor of engineering at West Virginia University in 1960. While her husband was busy during the day with his studies, Betsy began writing for magazines. Her work was eventually featured in The Saturday Evening Post, Look, Everywoman's Magazine, and TV Guide. Her first novel, Clementine, was published in 1962. Betsy and Ed Byars are both licensed aircraft pilots and lived on an airstrip in Seneca, South Carolina, the bottom floor of their house being a hangar.

Daughters Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers are also children's writers.

Byars moved back to Seneca in 1980 and retired in 1990. She died in Seneca on February 26, 2020.

Works

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Byars#Works

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https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/byars-betsy-cromer/

Among her numerous novels, Byars won the most critical acclaim for The Summer of the Swans (1970), the story of a young girl named Sara and her experiences with her mentally handicapped brother, Charlie. This book won many honors, including the John Newbery Medal from the American Library Association. In total, Byars has written more than fifty books, including The Night Swimmers (1980), Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (1991), and Keeper of the Doves (2002).

Writer. Byars was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on August 7, 1928, the daughter of George Guy Cromer and Nan Rugheimer. After attending Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, she graduated in 1950 from Queens College in Charlotte with a bachelor of arts degree in English, although she had begun college as a mathematics major. On June 24, 1950, she married Edward Ford Byars, a professor of engineering and a writer. Byars began her writing career with magazine articles until dedicating herself to children’s literature. In 1962 her first book, Clementine, was published. It was the first of many books that Byars would create from her personal experiences.

Among her numerous novels, Byars won the most critical acclaim for The Summer of the Swans (1970), the story of a young girl named Sara and her experiences with her mentally handicapped brother, Charlie. This book won many honors, including the John Newbery Medal from the American Library Association. In total, Byars has written more than fifty books, including The Night Swimmers (1980), Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (1991), and Keeper of the Doves (2002). Several have been adapted for television. In her autobiography, The Moon and I, published in 1991, Byars used the arrival of a blacksnake she named Moon to reveal her insights on a writer’s life along with anecdotes from her childhood.

Byars has three daughters and a son. With her daughters Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers, she wrote My Dog, My Hero (2000). Byars resides in Clemson with her husband.