Unable to find a job in her field after completing college, she first worked as a waitress and later as a librarian at the Cabell County Public Library in Huntington, West Virginia, where she finally became acquainted with children's books. degree from Marshall University in 1976, discovering and studying English literature and greatly enjoying her years in school. degree from Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston) in 1975 and a M.A. Also important to her emotional development was her relationship with a boy from school. She was deeply affected by his assassination. Kennedy, whom she met during his presidential campaign. As a teenager, Rylant became enchanted with Robert F. However, her West Virginia childhood was the major influence on her works, and many of them deal with life in the Appalachian region. She later wrote, "I did not have a chance to know him or to say goodbye to him, and that is all the loss I needed to become a writer." When she was nine years old, Rylant fell in love with Paul McCartney and The Beatles. Rylant never saw her father again, and he died when she was thirteen years old in 1967. There had been no libraries or bookstores in Cool Ridge, and there were none in Beaver. As a result, she never saw children's books as a child, reading mainly comic books and enjoying the outdoors.įour years later, she moved back with her mother, who had relocated to nearby Beaver, West Virginia. until someone could return for me", but they were very poor and lived a rustic life, with no electricity, running water or automobiles. Her grandparents, extended family and kind local townspeople provided a nurturing, safe environment, while the little girl "waited.
during the 1960s, Rylant lived in a very depressed economic environment. Growing up in the Appalachian region of the U.S. Her parents separated when she was four years old, and she was sent to live with her mother's parents in Cool Ridge, West Virginia, while her mother attended nursing school and was able to visit her only a few times a year. She spent her first four years in Illinois. Rylant uses her mother's maiden name as her pen name. Army veteran, John Tune Smith, and Leatrel Smith née Rylant. Rylant was born in Hopewell, West Virginia, the daughter of a U.S.
0 kommentar(er)
