Cynthia Voigt (1942-) Biography

Born 1942, in Boston, MA; daughter of Frederick C. (a corporate executive) and Elise (Keeney) Cynthia Voigt Irving; Education: Smith College, B.A., 1963. Politics: Independent. Hobbies and other interests: "Reading, eating well (especially with friends), tennis, movies, hanging around with our children, and considering the weather."

Addresses

Agent—Merrilee Heifetz, Writers House, Inc., 21 West 26th St., New York, NY 10010.

Career

J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency, secretary, 1964; high school English teacher in Glen Burnie, MD, 1965-67; The Key School, Annapolis, MD, English teacher, 1968-69, department chair, 1971-79, part-time teacher and department chair, 1981-88; author of books for young readers, 1981—.

Honors Awards

Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, National Council for Social Studies/Children's Book Council, and American Book Award nominee, both 1981, for Homecoming; American Library Association (ALA) Best Young Adult Books citation, 1982, for Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers; ALA Best Children's Books citation, 1982, and Newbery Medal, ALA, 1983, both for Dicey's Song; ALA Best Young Adult Books citation, 1983, and Newbery Honor book, 1984, both for A Solitary Blue; Edgar Allan Poe Award for best juvenile mystery, Mystery Writers of America, 1984, for The Callender Papers; Silver Pencil Award (Dutch), 1988, and Deutscher Jugendliteratur Preis, 1989, both for The Runner; Alan Award for achievement in young adult literature, 1989; California Young Reader's Award, 1990, for Izzy, Willy-Nilly.

Writings

"TILLERMAN FAMILY" SERIES

Homecoming, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1981, reprinted, Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 2002.

Dicey's Song, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1982, reprinted, Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 2002.

A Solitary Blue, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1983, reprinted, Aladdin (New York, NY), 2003.

The Runner, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1985.

Come a Stranger, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1986.

Sons from Afar, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1987.

Seventeen against the Dealer, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1989.

YOUNG ADULT NOVELS

Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1982.

The Callender Papers, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1983, reprinted, Aladdin (New York, NY), 2000.

Building Blocks, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1984, reprinted, Aladdin (New York, NY), 2002.

Izzy, Willy-Nilly, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1986.

Tree by Leaf, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1988.

The Vandemark Mummy, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1991.

David and Jonathan, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1992.

Orfe, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1993.

When She Hollers, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1994.

"THE KINGDOM" SERIES

Jackaroo, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1985, reprinted, Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 2003.

On Fortune's Wheel, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1990.

The Wings of a Falcon, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1993.

Elske, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1999.

"BAD GIRLS" SERIES

The Bad Girls, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1996.

Bad, Badder, Baddest, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1997.

It's Not Easy Being Bad, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2000.

Bad Girls in Love, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2002.

OTHER

Stories about Rosie (picture book), illustrated by Dennis Kendrick, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1986.

(Compiler, with David Bergman) Shore Writers' Sampler II (stories and poetry), Friendly Harbor Press, 1988.

Glass Mountain (adult fiction), Harcourt (New York, NY), 1991.

The Rosie Stories (picture book), illustrated by Cat Bowman Smith, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2003.

Angus and Sadie (picture book), illustrated by Tom Leigh, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2005.

Adaptations

Several of Voigt's titles have been recorded as audio books.

Work in Progress

When Bad Things Happen to Bad People, for Atheneum (New York, NY), 2006.

Sidelights

Cynthia Voigt is an accomplished storyteller noted for her well-developed characters, interesting plots, and authentic atmosphere. In her novels for children and young adults, she examines such serious topics as child abandonment, verbal abuse, racism, and coping with amputation. Reviewers have praised Voigt's fluent and skillfully executed writing style, compelling topics, and vividly detailed descriptions. Critics also have described Voigt's themes as universal and meaningful to young adults, particularly noting her expertise in fashioning convincing characters and rich relationships in which both adults and children grow in understanding. In a Twentieth-Century Children's Writers essay, Sylvia Patterson Iskander described the qualities that have made Voigt's writings appealing to readers: "Voigt's understanding of narrative techniques, power to create memorable characters, admirable but not goody-goody, knowledge of the problems of youth, and desire to teach by transporting readers into the characters' inner lives result in reversing unpromising, perhaps tragic, situations to positive, optimistic ones."

Voigt was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the second of five children, but her childhood was spent in small-town southern Connecticut. Voigt began to develop an interest in books early on, recalling: "My grandmother lived in northern Connecticut, in a house three stories high; its corridors lined with bookcases." Voigt noted that she had already become an avid reader, with books such as "Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, The Black Stallion, and the Terhune book[s]," when one day at her grandmother's house she "pulled The Secret Garden off one of her shelves and read it. This was the first book I found entirely for myself, and I cherished it. There weren't any so-called 'young adult' books when I was growing up. If you were a good reader, once you hit fourth grade, things got a little thin. I started to read adult books, with my mother making sure what I had chosen was not 'too adult.' I read Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Camus, and many classics, except for Moby Dick, which I finally read in college. It knocked me out. I came to Dickens and Trollope later in life."

By the time Voigt began high school, she had set her sights on a career as a writer. She began writing short stories and poetry, and upon entering Smith College, a women's college in Massachusetts, she enrolled in creative writing courses. Her work, however, received little encouragement from her teachers. "Clearly what I was submitting didn't catch anyone's eye," she once remarked. "I never had a bad teacher like my character, Mr. Chappelle in A Solitary Blue." On the other hand, she did find that some of her teachers at Smith "resented teaching women, feeling themselves too good for the position. We had very little patience with that attitude."

Following graduation from Smith College, Voigt moved to New York City where she worked for the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency. "I married in 1964 and moved with my first husband to Santa Fe, New Mexico," she recalled. "I was to work as a secretary to help support us while he was in school. But even with my New York experience it was difficult to find a job. I drifted into the Department of Education one day and asked what I would have to do to qualify myself to teach school. They learned that I'd attended Smith College and signed me up for accrediting courses at a Christian Brothers college. Within six months I met the terms of certification. I vowed I would never teach when I left Smith, and yet, the minute I walked into a classroom, I loved it."

By the time of her divorce from her first husband, Voigt had settled in Annapolis, Maryland. "I had been writing throughout college, but during most of my first marriage, I didn't write much at all," Voigt once commented. Voigt had worked at the high school in Glen Burnie, Maryland. She then was hired by The Key School in Annapolis: "I was assigned to teach English in second, fifth and seventh grades. The second graders were a kick and a half. I assigned book reports to my fifth graders. I would go to the library and starting with the letter 'A' peruse books at the fifth, sixth, and seventh-grade age level. If a book looked interesting, I checked it out. I once went home with thirty books! It was then that I realized one could tell stories which had the shape of real books—novels—for kids the age of my students. I began to get ideas for young adult novels and juvenile books. That first year of teaching and reading really paid off in spades! I felt I had suddenly discovered and was exploring a new country."

In 1974, the author married Walter Voigt, a teacher of Latin and Greek at The Key School. "I was teaching full time, but was able to continue the writing I'd begun while I was living alone by sticking to my regime of one hour a day," the author recalled. When Voigt became pregnant, she switched to teaching part-time and dedicated more of her time to writing. "The summer I was pregnant I wrote the first draft of The Callender Papers. When my son, Peter, was an infant, I took him to school and taught with him in a 'Snuggli.' When he was a year old, I wrote Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers, and the next year (he was in a playpen in the faculty lounge next to my classroom), I began Homecoming.

"One day while I was writing Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers, I went to the market and saw a car full of kids left to wait alone in the parking lot. As the electric supermarket doors whooshed open, I asked myself 'What would happen if nobody ever came back for those kids?' I made some jottings in my notebook, and let them 'stew' for a year, the way most of my ideas do. When I sat down to write the story that grew from my question (and this is typical of my process) I made a list of character names. Then I tried them on to see if they fit. I knew Dicey was the main character, but was not sure precisely who she was. The more I wrote about her, the more real she became to me. I'd planned a book about half the size of Homecoming. But a few chapters into the novel, the grandmother became central and I began to see that there was a lot more going on than would fit in one book." Homecoming became Voigt's first published novel, appearing 1981.

With Homecoming, the author begins the saga of the Tillermans, four fatherless children aged six through thirteen who are abandoned in a shopping mall parking lot by their mentally ill mother. Dicey, the eldest, takes it upon herself to care for all four, and they eventually move to their grandmother's home in distant Maryland. "The plot is well developed, fast paced, with some suspense. The book deals with the pain of losses—death, separation, poverty—but also with responsibility, friends, wisdom, happiness, survival," wrote Christian Science Monitor critic Joanna Shaw-Eagle. Although many critics questioned whether the length of the work and its often-negative portrayal of adults made it inappropriate for young adult readers, Kathleen Leverich of the New York Times Book Review took these elements into consideration when she concluded that "the accomplishments of this feisty band of complex and … sympathetically conceived kids makes for an enthralling journey to a gratifying end."

Dicey's Song continues the Tillermans' story, concentrating on young Dicey's emerging understanding of her new life in her grandmother's house in Maryland and her relationships with her siblings and grandmother. Even better received than Homecoming, Dicey's Song was praised for its cohesive plot and the depth of its characterizations, particularly of Dicey and her eccentric grandmother. In her review in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Zena Sutherland called Dicey's Song "a rich and perceptive book." In 1983, the book earned Voigt the prestigious Newbery Medal.

In A Solitary Blue, Voigt centers on Jeff, a friend of Dicey's introduced in the earlier Tillerman novels, whose mother abandons him to the care of his remote father while she goes off to help needy children. The story depicts the evolution of Jeff's understanding of his parents and of himself. According to Gloria P. Rohmann in her review in School Library Journal, the book "ultimately disappoints"; but other critics, while noting flaws, praised the depiction of the relationship between Jeff and his father. Jane Langton in her critique in the New York Times Book Review called A Solitary Blue "beautifully written," comparing it to Charles Dickens's Bleak House. A Solitary Blue was named a Newbery Honor book in 1984.

On the Scholastic Web site, readers asked Voigt how it felt to win the Newbery Medal. She answered, "It felt absolutely terrific. Part of the great thing was that I didn't expect it. I didn't expect it not because I didn't think I'd be considered, but because I thought the committee was meeting later in the month! I said to myself, 'Okay, you can get anxious about this at the end of January.' But the phone call came in the middle of January, which took me totally by surprise! It was like getting something you hoped for but didn't know if you were really going to get—like getting into college times ten. I think if my parents had given me the horse that I asked for when I was twelve, I might have felt the same way. It was like being queen for a day. It was terrific."

The Runner is another spin-off from the Tillerman novels, this time set a generation before the others and centered on Samuel "Bullet" Tillerman, whose obsession is long-distance running and whose torment is his autocratic father. The plot turns on Bullet's prejudice against black people, which is eventually softened by his association with Tamer Shipp, a black runner. Although some critics found the plot contrived and the writing overdone, Alice Digilio of Washington Post Book World concluded, "Voigt sails The Runner through some heavy seas, but always with a steady hand." In Come a Stranger, Voigt supplements the Tillerman series with another novel that takes racism as its focus. The plot centers on Mina Smiths, a character first introduced in Dicey's Song, whose experience of being the only black girl at ballet camp one summer impels her to try to identify with whites. Tamer Shipp appears as Mina's minister, to whom she goes for guidance. Though some critics faulted the author for stereotyping her black characters, others praised Voigt for the depth of her characterizations and smooth writing style.

Voigt completed her Tillerman series with the books Sons from Afar and Seventeen against the Dealer. She once commented on the writing process for the Tillerman books: "Bullet's story, which is what The Runner is, crossed my mind when I was writing Homecoming and put him in there. It had been in the back of my mind for that two-or three-year period. In the meantime I was writing two other Tillerman books, which had come naturally one out of the other. The ideas get in my head, and then there's a time when it's the right time to write them, I hope. And that's when I sit down to do them."

Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers, Voigt's second published novel, focuses on three female college freshmen who become roommates, then teammates on the same volleyball team, and then friends. While some critics faulted the novel for what New York Times Book Review critic Kathleen Leverich called "exaggeration of character and the sacrifice of the theme to improbable theatrics," others, like Sally Estes of Booklist, dubbed Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers "both provocative and rewarding for older, more perceptive high school age readers."

Voigt's next publication was The Callender Papers, a Gothic mystery set in late-nineteenth-century New England. Thirteen-year-old Jean Wainwright agrees to sort through the papers of Irene Callender, who died under mysterious circumstances and whose child then disappeared. Jean eventually finds the answer to the mystery, learning some lessons about life in the process. A number of critics observed that The Callender Papers was lighter fare than Voigt usually offers her readers, but most also found the mystery satisfying and well written.

Voigt created another novel for slightly younger adolescents in her 1984 work, Building Blocks. In what Zena Sutherland of Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books described as "an interesting time-travel story," Voigt depicts a strengthening relationship between a father and son through understanding gained when the son is transported from 1974 to the Depression. There he becomes friends with the ten-year-old boy who will become his father. Building Blocks was generally well-received, even by critics who did not admire the science-fiction element in the plot. New Directions for Women reviewer Elizabeth Sachs wrote: "Though the transition back in time is awkward, the scenes of Brann with his young boy father are beautiful."

Voigt also utilizes magical elements in Jackaroo, a book Karen P. Smith described in School Library Journal as "an intense and elegantly written historical adventure-romance." Set in a mythical place during the Middle Ages, Jackaroo features a strong teenage heroine who takes on the persona of the legendary Jackaroo in order to save her family and community. As Mary M. Burns remarked in Horn Book: "As in all of Cynthia Voigt's books, the style is fluid … the setting is evoked through skillfully crafted description; the situations speak directly to the human condition."

Voigt continued the story begun in Jackaroo with On Fortune's Wheel, and then resurrected the setting again in The Wings of a Falcon, a novel a Kirkus Reviews critic called "grand, thought-provoking entertainment." This work centers on Oriel and his friend Griff, who escape from an island of slavery to travel across unknown lands only to be captured by Wolfers, a destructive band of barbarians, before escaping and settling on a farm in the north. Reviewers noted the book's length and mature themes in their generally positive reviews. In her review in School Library Journal, Susan L. Rogers compared Voigt's fantasy trilogy to her Tillerman series: "Each volume stands on its own, but together they create a tapestry more complex, meaningful, and compelling than its individual parts."

With the addition of a fourth title in the same setting, Elske, the quartet of books became known as "The Kingdom" series. Elske is only twelve when she flees her homeland in order to escape being sacrificed and buried with her people's dead leader. She takes on the role of a servant in a neighboring country, and because she is intelligent and honest, she eventually becomes the handmaiden to Beriel, the woman who should be on the throne of the kingdom. Beriel and Elske travel together, trying to find a way for Beriel to win back her kingdom. Shelle Rosenfeld of Booklist considered the character of Elske "a notable addition to Voigt's long line of strong female protagonists." According to a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "This spellbinding work continually challenges readers to keep up with its far-seeing, swift-thinking protagonist." Though commenting that the book might be beyond the reading level of some teen readers, Burns noted in Horn Book that, "for the right reader, it will be an engrossing experience." "This is not just another adventure featuring a warrior maiden," the critic continued; "it is challenging and thoughtful."

In Izzy, Willy-Nilly, Voigt depicts the trauma faced by an active teenager whose leg is amputated after a car accident. Through this incident, and with the help of Roseamunde, an awkward girl who embodies all that Izzy did not before her accident, Voigt's protagonist finds resources and wisdom within herself that she might otherwise never have known. Though some critics complained about the book's length and some unrealistic elements in the plot, Patty Campbell of Wilson Library Bulletin dubbed Izzy, Willy-Nilly the "best young adult novel of the season, and perhaps of the year."

The Vandemark Mummy was more warmly received. A mystery for younger adolescents, the plot centers on a brother and sister who go with their father when he is hired as the curator for an Egyptian collection at Vandemark College. When the collection's mummy is stolen and then found in a damaged condition, the sister disappears trying to uncover the thief. A reviewer for Junior Bookshelf wrote: "Serious issues are under debate, but the story is exciting and highly entertaining." In David and Jonathan, Voigt returns to more weighty matters for the older adolescent with a story that deals with the Holocaust, the Vietnam war, and homosexuality. A Junior Bookshelf contributor called David and Jonathan "highly serious," adding: "It is equally highly readable."

Voigt is also the author of picture books about dogs, two of which feature Rosie. Stories about Rosie features humorous stories focusing on the Voigt family dog and told from the dog's perspective. While some critics found the stories too long and complex for a picture-book audience, a Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded: "Rosie is a lightweight, just-right book for dog fans everywhere." Rosie returns in The Rosie Stories, and her escapades vary from wanting to eat her breakfast at the same time as her human family, knocking over a trash can, and practicing aerobics with the family's mother. "Voigt cleverly uses Rosie's repetition of words to create a feeling of success in new readers," praised Louise Brueggemann in her review for Booklist. A Kirkus Reviews contributor recommended the book "For dog lovers of all ages. Good dog, Rosie!"

Angus and Sadie introduces readers to two border collies who live on a farm in Maine. Though the two are siblings, they don't seem very alike at all. While the "Rosie" books focus on the relationship between Rosie and her family, Angus and Sadie looks more closely at the relationship between the two canine siblings.

In 1996, Voigt began a new series for middle-grade readers and introduced readers to Mikey and Margolo in The Bad Girls. The series follows the two girls from fifth grade on into middle school as they rebel against authority, popular expectations, and ultimately begin to deal with issues of growing up, falling in love, and deciding whether or not it's worthwhile to fit in. In Bad Girls, Mikey and Margalo first encounter each other—Mikey is an obvious troublemaker who likes to act mean and dangerous, while Margalo is a quiet and manipulative girl who knows how to work behind the scenes to get her way. When they first meet, they are cautious and untrusting, but eventually they band together as outsiders. "Readers will recognize the fact that meanness can be about anger and misery as well as glorious mischief," explained Hazel Rochman in her Booklist review. As Lauren Adams wrote in Horn Book, "Voigt deftly portrays the dynamics of a fifth-grade classroom … [and] clearly takes wicked pleasure in her bad girls, as will the readers." The girls move on to sixth grade and the activity is on the homefront instead of in Cynthia Voigt mines the emotional terrain of middle-school romance in this 2002 novel, which finds formerly feisty Mikey domesticated to the point of cookie-baking after crushing on school heartthrob Shawn Macavity, despite the warnings of her friends. the classroom in Bad, Badder, Baddest. Mikey's parents may be getting a divorce, and Mikey and Margalo plot to keep them together so that the two girls won't have to be separated. "Rarely are heroines so charismatic," commented a reviewer for Publishers Weekly. Carolyn Phelan, writing in Booklist, called the title "a laugh-out-loud sitcom with outrageous dialogue and hilarious one-liners."

The adventures of Mikey and Margolo continue in It's Not Easy Being Bad. In this book, the girls are entering junior high, and they decide they want the respect of their classmates. Mikey charges head on with a plan doomed for failure, while Margalo plots to win them both respect by protesting the school's rule that seventh graders aren't allowed to play on certain teams. Mikey's talent in tennis and Margalo's persistence in combating unfair rules help them to get the attention that they sought. Debbie Carton, writing for Booklist, called It's Not Easy Being Bad "an on-target portrait of a segment of middle-school society." A Publishers Weekly critic felt that though the book is "more intelligent than most similarly themed middle-grade fiction," the third addition to the series "doesn't stand up to its predecessors." A Horn Book, contributor, however, found the book to be "Unburdened by the too-heavy issues of the second book," and noted that the story is "propelled by the daily conflict in the hallways and cafeteria."

Bad Girls in Love follows Mikey and Margalo into eighth grade and their first experiences with attraction to a member of the opposite sex. Mikey, who had always considered herself a tom boy, falls hard for the most popular boy in school. Though she tries subtle things like wearing skirts to school to try to gain the boy's attention, Mikey tackles the situation with as much bluntness and fervor as she has shown dealing with every other problem she encounters. Margalo, on the other hand, reveals nothing about her crush, keeping it secret that she is attracted to her teacher Mr. Schramm. "This may well be the Bad Girls' most delicious outing yet," applauded a contributor to Kirkus Reviews. Paul Rohrlick, writing in Kliatt, named it a "gossipy, true-to-life tale about first crushes." While School Library Journal reviewer Susan Oliver found the entry into the series to be "shallow and unsatisfying," Hazel Rochman wrote in Booklist that Voigt "gets the junior-high jungle exactly right." Horn Book critic Lauren Adams felt similarly; "Voigt realistically conveys the heartache of first infatuation with compassion and without bleakness," she concluded.

When asked by readers on the Scholastic Web site why she decided to write the "Bad Girls" series, Voigt explained, "I think the question of what makes someone bad is worth exploring. I think Mikey and Margolo are inconvenient. I think they're terrific. I wanted to see if I could have girls who would do bad things because they wanted to. Not criminal, not cruel, but just the kinds of things that would not sit will in a classroom. I get tired of writing about people who are supposed to be bad but are only misunderstood. I think all of us are egotistical and are interested in ourselves and our own well-being. We should have more fun with that."

Voigt's books have earned her acclaim from readers and critics, for both their thoughtful themes and entertaining prose. While the products of her work have achieved success in the publishing world, Voigt once commented that the actual process of writing also has an important place in her life: "Awards are external, they happen after the real work has been done. They are presents, and while they are intensely satisfying they do not give me the same kind of pleasure as being in the middle of a work that is going well .… Writing is something I need to do to keep myself on an even keel. It's kept me quiet; it's kept me off the streets." Voigt's advice to aspiring writers reflects this ethic: "Do it, not for awards, but for the pleasure of writing."