Betsy Byars began her writing career rather late in life. "In all of my school years, . . . not one single teacher ever said to me, 'Perhaps you should consider becoming a writer,'" Byars recalls. "Anyway, I didn't want to be a writer. Writing seemed boring. You sat in a room all day by yourself and typed. If I was going to be a writer at all, I was going to be a foreign correspondent like Claudette Colbert in Arise My Love. I would wear smashing hats, wisecrack with the guys, and have a byline known round the world. My father wanted me to be a mathematician." So Byars set out to become mathematician, but when she couldn't grasp calculus in college, she turned to English. Even then, writing was not on her immediate horizon.
First, she married and started a family. The writing career didn't emerge until she was 28, a mother of two children, and living in a small place she called the barracks apartment, in Urbana, Illinois. She and her husband, Ed, had moved there in 1956 so he could attend graduate school at the University of Illinois. She was bored, had no friends, and so turned to writing to fill her time. Byars started writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post, Look,and other magazines. As her family grew and her children started to read, she began to write books for young people and, fortunately for her readers, discovered that there was more to being a writer than sitting in front of a typewriter.
"Making up stories and characters is so interesting that I'm never bored. Each book has been a different writing experience. It takes me about a year to write a book, but I spend another year thinking about it, polishing it, and making improvements. I always put something of myself intomy books -- something that happened to me. Once a wanderer came by my house and showed me how to brush my teeth with a cherry twig; that went in The House of Wingscopyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.
Gr 3-6‘Brian Fairman faithfully reads Betsy Byars' Herculeah Jones Mystery (Viking, 1995). As usual, Herculeah's curiosity gets her into all sorts of trouble and danger. She parrot-sits for a neighbor, Madame Rosa, who is a palmist and fortune teller. The parrot, Tarot, knows only one word‘Beware! One day, Herculeah notices Madame Rosa's front door open and Tarot loose on the porch. She goes to return the parrot. The 70-year-old house is dark, the velvet drapes are drawn, and Tarot's parrot stand is knocked over. Her hair "frizzles" as it always does when there is danger. Madame Rosa doesn't answer her calls. Tarot continues to scream "Beware!" Herculeah leaves a phone message for her mom, a private investigator, to come help her. Herculeah finds Madame Rosa's dead body under the cloth draped table Madame Rosa used to tell fortunes. She calls her police lieutenant father. Herculeah and her friend, Meat, continue to try to solve the murder themselves. One of the most suspenseful episodes takes place in Madame Rosa's garden when the murderer threatens to kill Herculeah with a knife. Fairman reads with just enough suspense in his voice to keep listeners on the edge of their seats. The tapes can be used for individual or group listening.-Mary-Ellen Raup, North Colonie Central Schools, Newtonville, NY
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