Diane Stanley (1943-) Biography

(Diane Zuromskis, Diane Stanley Zuromskis)

Personal

Born 1943, in Abilene, TX; (second marriage) John Leslie. Education: Trinity University, B.A., 1965; attended Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, 1966–67; Johns Hopkins University, M.A., 1970. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Episcopalian. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, painting, travel.

Addresses

Agent—Sheldon Fogelman Agency, 10 East 40th St., New York, NY 10016.

Career

Author and illustrator of books for children. Freelance medical illustrator, 1970–74; Dell Publishing, New York, NY, graphic designer, 1977; G. P. Putnam's Sons and Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, New York, NY, art director of children's books, 1977–79. Full-time author and illustrator, 1979–. Exhibitions: Bush Galleries, Norwich, VT, 1987; National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature, Abilene, TX, 1998; National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2002.

Honors Awards

Children's Choice Award, American Reading Association, 1979, for The Farmer in the Dell; Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), 1983, for The Month Brothers: A Slavic Tale and The Conversation Club, 1985, for A Country Tale, 1986, for Peter the Great and Captain Whiz-Bang, 1988, for Shaka: King of the Zulus, 1990, for Fortune, 1991, for The Last Princess: The Story of Princess Ka'iulani of Hawai'i, and 1992, for Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare; Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children designation, Children's Book Council/National Science Teachers Association, 1985, for All Wet! All Wet!; Notable Book designation, American Library Association (ALA), 1986, and Golden Kite Award Honor Book, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), 1987, both for Peter the Great; Notable Book designation, ALA, and Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Book for Nonfiction, both 1990, both for Good Queen Bess: The Story of Elizabeth I of England; Notable Book designation, ALA, 1991, Children's Choices for 1992, International Reading Association (IRA)/Children's Book Council (CBC), and Carter G. Woodson Award, NCSS, both 1992, all for The Last Princess; Children's Choice Award, IRA/CBC, 1992, for Siegfried; Notable Book designation, ALA, and Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children nominee, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), both 1992, and Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts, 1993, all for Bard of Avon; Notable Book designation, ALA, 1994, for Cleopatra, 1998, for Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter, 2000, for Raising Sweetness, and 2002, for Saladin, Noble Prince of Islam; Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, and Notable Book, ALA, both 1996, and Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Nonfiction, 1997, all for Leonardo da Vinci; Golden Kite Award Honor Book, 1997, for Saving Sweetness; Notable Book designation, ALA, 1998, and Golden Kite Award nominee, 1999, both for Joan of Arc; Best Books for Young Adults designation, ALA, for A Time Apart; Notable Book designation, ALA, and Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Book for Nonfiction, both for Good Queen Bess; Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Medal Book Award, 2004, for Goldie and the Three Bears; Washington Post/Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award for body of work.

Writings

(And illustrator) Giambattista Basile, Petrosinella, a Neapolitan Rapunzel, adapted from the translation by John Edward Taylor, Warne (New York, NY), 1981, retold by Stanley, Dial (New York, NY), 1995.

The Good-Luck Pencil, illustrated by Bruce Degen, Four Winds (New York, NY), 1986.

Siegfried, illustrated by John Sandford, Bantam (New York, NY), 1991.

Moe the Dog in Tropical Paradise, illustrated by Elise Primavera, Putnam (New York, NY), 1992.

The Gentleman and the Kitchen Maid, illustrated by Dennis Nolan, Dial (New York, NY), 1994.

Woe Is Moe, illustrated by E. Primavera, Putnam (New York, NY), 1995.

Elena, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1996.

Saving Sweetness, illustrated by G. Brian Karas, Putnam (New York, NY), 1996.

Raising Sweetness, illustrated by G. Brian Karas, Putnam (New York, NY), 1999.

A Time Apart, Morrow (New York, NY), 1999.

The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

Bella at Midnight: The Thimble, the Ring, and the Slippers of Glass, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006.

ILLUSTRATOR

(Under name Diane Zuromskis) The Farmer in the Dell, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1978.

(Under name Diane Stanley Zuromskis) Verna Aardema, Half-a-Ball-of-Kenki: An Ashanti Tale Retold, Warne (New York, NY), 1979.

Fiddle-I-Fee: A Traditional American Chant, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1979.

Tony Johnston, Little Mouse Nibbling, Putnam (New York, NY), 1979.

M. Jean Craig, The Man Whose Name Was Not Thomas, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1981.

Toni Hormann, Onions, Onions, Crowell (New York, NY), 1981.

Jane Yolen, Sleeping Ugly, Coward (New York, NY), 1981.

Jean and Claudio Marzollo, Robin of Bray, Dial (New York, NY), 1982.

Joanne Ryder, Beach Party, Warne (New York, NY), 1982.

James Whitcomb Riley, Little Orphan Annie, Putnam (New York, NY), 1983.

Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak, reteller, The Month Brothers: A Slavic Tale, translated by Thomas P. Whitney, Morrow (New York, NY), 1983.

James Skofield, All Wet! All Wet!, Harper (New York, NY), 1984.

Fay Grissom Stanley, The Last Princess: The Story of Princess Ka'iulani of Hawai'i, Four Winds Press (New York, NY), 1991.

SELF-ILLUSTRATED PICTURE BOOKS

The Conversation Club, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1983.

Birdsong Lullaby, Morrow (New York, NY), 1985.

A Country Tale, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1985.

Captain Whiz-Bang, Morrow (New York, NY), 1987.

Fortune, Morrow (New York, NY), 1990.

Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter, Morrow (New York, NY), 1997.

Goldie and the Three Bears, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

The Giant and the Beanstalk, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2004.

SELF-ILLUSTRATED; PICTURE-BOOK BIOGRAPHIES

Peter the Great, Four Winds Press (New York, NY), 1986.

(With husband, Peter Vennema) Shaka: King of the Zulus, Morrow (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Peter Vennema) Good Queen Bess: The Story of Elizabeth I of England, Four Winds (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Peter Vennema) Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare, Morrow (New York, NY), 1992.

(With Peter Vennema) Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations, Morrow (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Peter Vennema) Cleopatra, Morrow (New York, NY), 1994.

The True Adventure of Daniel Hall, Dial (New York, NY), 1995.

Leonardo da Vinci, Morrow (New York, NY), 1996.

Joan of Arc, Morrow (New York, NY), 1998.

Michelangelo, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2000.

Saladin, Noble Prince of Islam, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2002.

"TIME-TRAVELING TWINS" SERIES

Roughing It on the Oregon Trail, illustrated by Holly Berry, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2000.

Joining the Boston Tea Party, illustrated by Holly Berry, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation, illustrated by Holly Berry, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Adaptations

Moe the Dog in Tropical Paradise was released as a video by MCA/Universal Home Video, 1994 and was adapted as an animated segment of Bedtime Stories, Showtime Network.

Sidelights

An American author and illustrator of fiction, nonfiction, and picture books as well as a re-teller of folktales from other cultures, Diane Stanley is regarded as an especially talented and versatile creator of literature for children. Although she has written and illustrated a variety of books for primary and middle graders, Stanley is perhaps best known as the writer and artist of picturebook biographies of historical and literary figures for readers in the upper grades. These works, which are celebrated as appealing, balanced treatments that do justice to their subjects, profile warriors such as Rus-sian tsar Peter the Great, Zulu king Shaka, and Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans; women rulers such as Cleopatra and Elizabeth I of England; and creators of art and literature such as Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Dickens, and Michelangelo. Stanley and her husband, Peter Vennema, both thoroughly research the subjects of Stanley's illustrated biographies. Stanley then writes and illustrates the books, weaving the characteristics and accomplishments of her subjects into a form that resembles a story. Reviewers note the smoothness and readability of Stanley's prose while lauding her drawings and paintings as both accurate and beautiful. In her review of Joan of Arc in School Library Journal, Shirley Wilton commended Stanley's "talent for historical research, skill in writing clear and interesting prose, and ability to adapt different art styles and techniques appropriate to her subjects."

In addition to her picture-book biographies, Stanley has written and illustrated a wide variety of books in other genres. Her picture books range from humorous to gentle to atmospheric and feature children and animals, both real and anthropomorphic. Stanley has also written longer stories as well as young-adult novels and adaptations of familiar tales. As with her picture-book biographies, Stanley is celebrated for the illustrations that grace her other works. Using mediums such as colored pencil and collage as well as her characteristic watercolor, the artist creates pictures that range from miniature drawings to soft pastel watercolors and ornate, sumptuous paintings filled with light and intricate geometric shapes. Although she is occasionally criticized for the brevity and selective quality of her texts in her picture book biographies as well as for the stiffness of some of the human figures in her illustrations, most observers consider Stanley to be the creator of engaging works that are especially notable for their lucid texts and eye-catching art.

Born in Abilene, Texas, Stanley is the only child of Burt Stanley, a Navy pilot who was a flying ace in World War II and won a Distinguished Flying Cross, and Fay Grissom Stanley, a novelist, playwright, copywriter, and author of nonfiction. Stanley's parents divorced not long after she was born, and Stanley went with her mother to New York City. They lived in a brownstone in Greenwich Village that served as the setting for Fay's first mystery novel, Murder Leaves a Ring, which was dedicated to Diane; Stanley returned the favor with the first book that she both wrote and illustrated, The Conversation Club. Later, mother and daughter collaborated on the biography The Last Princess: The Story of Princess Ka'iulani of Hawai'i, which Fay wrote and Diane illustrated.

Describing herself in an essay for Something about the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS) as "the one child of a glamorous divorcee living in the artsy West Village of New York in the 1940s …," Stanley ate in elegant restaurants, went to the opera and to Broadway plays, read books by authors such as Oscar Wilde and Hilaire Belloc, and met several artists, actors, and writers. She sang duets from Broadway shows with her mother and acted in both school plays and amateur productions with friends. After completing second grade, Stanley learned that her mother had contracted tuberculosis. During Fay's hospitalization and recuperation, a period that lasted approximately two years, Stanley went back to Abilene to live with her mother's sister Nancy Sayles and Nancy's husband Hal.

After Fay Grissom Stanley's recovery from tuberculosis, mother and daughter moved to La Jolla, California, where they lived a few blocks from the beach. In high school, Stanley wrote for the school newspaper, sang in several choral groups, and was president of the drama club, which she described in SAAS as "my big interest." When Stanley was age sixteen, her mother became ill again and had to be hospitalized, so Diane moved back to Abilene and stayed with the Sayles family. After her graduation from Abilene High School, Stanley went to Trinity University, a small, Presbyterian liberal arts college in San Antonio. During her senior year, Stanley took two drawing classes. She wrote in SAAS, "Though I had had no other art training, I seemed instinctively to know what to do. It felt as if I had been doing it all my life." At the end of the year, Stanley's teacher called her into his office. He told her that she was the only person in the class who was not an art major and that she was also the only person to receive an "A" as a final grade. Stanley stated, "He told me I had talent. This changed my life. I believed him."

In her essay in SAAS, Stanley mused that it "seems odd to me that my natural interest and talent in art did not come to the foreground earlier. I certainly shone whenever we had to draw something in school, or carve something out of a bar of soap. I remember taking watercolors down to the beach and attempting to paint the sea. And I was forever making things." Stanley has pointed out that writing is something that she did well, and often. "Because my mother was a writer," she wrote in SAAS, "I often thought that I, too, could be a writer." Stanley attributes much of her success in writing to her interest in reading. "I cannot stress enough," she noted in SAAS, "what a big part reading has always played in my life. It comforted me when I was sad or lonely, broadened my understanding of the world, enriched my vocabulary, entertained me, made me think, made me laugh, made me cry, helped me grow. I could never have become a writer if I weren't first a reader."

After graduating from college in 1963, Stanley moved to Houston and began working as a lab technician in a hospital; she also took life-drawing classes at night. Stanley recalled in SAAS, "Working in a hospital, I learned about medical illustration, a field in which artists are trained in medicine and then do illustrations for medical and scientific books. Being the kind of artist who loves detail and works small, this seemed just right for me." Stanley spent a year at the University of Texas studying art and finishing the pre-med requirements for graduate school. While living in Houston, Stanley met Peter Vennema, a young man who had just graduated from Harvard Business School; the two fell in love, then drifted apart. Fourteen years later, Vennema was to play a prominent role in Stanley's life.

In 1966, Stanley spent a year studying art at the University of Edinburgh. When not studying, Stanley traveled to Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Greek Islands. She also went to Russia, which especially fascinated her. Stanley wrote in SAAS, "This was the beginning of my 'Russian phase,' in which I read all the great Russian novels, beginning with War and Peace, studied Russian art and history, and unknowingly planted the seeds of the first biography I would write years later, Peter the Great." The following summer, Stanley and a friend toured Europe before heading to Israel, where they picked apples in a kibbutz. Returning to the United States, Stanley was accepted for graduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University College of Medicine in Baltimore; she was one of only two students to be accepted that year. She received her master's degree from Johns Hopkins in 1970.

Shortly after receiving her master's degree, Stanley married Peter Zuromskis, a fellow classmate who had become a doctor; the couple had two daughters, Catherine and Tamara. Stanley read widely to her children when they were young, and in the process she discovered an interest in children's literature. While researching the field, Stanley began experimenting with watercolors and pen-and-ink drawings; she also taught herself color-separation techniques. Stanley created a portfolio of illustrations for children's books while juggling fulltime motherhood and freelance work as a medical illustrator. On a trip to Boston, she made an appointment with John Keller, who was then the editor-in-chief of the publishers Little, Brown and Company. Keller gave Stanley her first book contract; she wrote in SAAS, "This was, without a doubt, one of the happiest days of my life."

Keller had suggested to Stanley that she create an illustrated version of the nursery rhyme "The Farmer in the Dell." In 1978, she produced The Farmer in the Dell as Diane Zuromskis. In line drawings and pastel watercolors enclosed in circular frames that appear across from the text of the familiar refrain, Stanley depicts the farmer in his bachelor days, at his marriage, with his family, and with his animals. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly trumpeted, "Zuromskis's first book suggests that she has begun a rich career." In 1979, Stanley illustrated her first book by another writer, Verna Aardema's Half-a-Ball-of-Kenki: An Ashanti Tale Retold. She produced her second adaptation of a familiar song, Fiddle-I-Fee: A Traditional American Chant, in the same year. Illustrated with lively four-color drawings, the book depicts a red-haired, freckle-faced girl who has a dinner party in her tree house for all of the animals mentioned in the song. Fiddle-I-Fee is the first of Stanley's books to be published as Diane Stanley; in the year of its publication, Stanley and Peter Zuromskis were divorced.

Through a series of coincidences, Stanley became reacquainted with Vennema, who was working in the engineering business in Texas. In 1979, Stanley and Vennema married and she moved to Houston, where she became a full-time illustrator. Stanley and Vennema had a son, John Leslie, in 1981; two years later, she produced The Conversation Club, the work she both wrote and illustrated. In this picture book, which is illustrated in alternating spreads of watercolors and black-and-white drawings, Peter Fieldmouse, new in town, is invited to a meeting of the Conversation Club, where everyone converses at once. Peter decides to form his own group, the Listening Club, where one mouse talks at a time. The club becomes a success when the mice experience the joys of listening and of being heard. Writing in Booklist, Ilene Cooper called The Conversation Club a "cozy little story with pictures to match," adding, "As in other books, [Stanley's] patterning and design work are visual delights."

In 1986, Stanley published the first of her picture book biographies, Peter the Great. Inspired by memories of her travels in Russia and by an adult biography of Peter Alexeevich by Robert K. Massie, Stanley decided to condense the life of the controversial tsar, who opened communication between Russia and the rest of Europe, into a standard thirty-two page text. Stanley emphasizes the events in Peter's life with the most interest for children, such as his boyhood. Through her portrayal, Peter emerges as a visionary and a reformer as well as a tyrant. Stanley illustrated Peter the Great with jewel-like, intricately patterned pictures in watercolor and gouache that draw on elements of both Asian and European art. Jean Fritz wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Peter the Great "stays close to the historical record and turns out to be the strongest story of all…. [Stanley] has the good sense not to embellish his extraordinary life and let it speak for itself." Fritz added that Stanley's "exquisite illustrations hang like framed pictures on her pages."

In more recent biographies, Stanley has become, as she stated in SAAS, "more thorough and more honest" about revealing the parts of the lives of her subjects that are cruel or shocking. She also continued to search for colorful anecdotes to bring out the personalities of her subjects. "In all my biographies," she noted in SAAS, "I now search for the telling anecdote, in hopes that it will capture the child's imagination." Beginning with her second biography, Shaka: King of the Zulus, Stanley involved Vennema in the research for her works and her husband often did the preliminary library work, establishing the bibliography. Both he and Stanley would then read the many sources that he had chosen. Although Stanley did the actual writing, Vennema served as an editorial consultant; consequently, he is listed as coauthor on several biographies. Beginning with Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations, Stan-ley and her family began to take research trips for her books. They went to England for Charles Dickens, to Egypt for Cleopatra, to Italy—twice—for Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and to France for Joan of Arc.

Reviewers have consistently praise Stanley for creating exceptional picture books biographies. A critic in Publishers Weekly called Leonardo da Vinci a "virtuosic work," and in School Library Journal, Shirley Wilton called Joan of Arc a "magnificent picture book" as well as "a work of art, a good story, and a model of historical writing." Stanley received a Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Book citation for Good Queen Bess: The Story of Elizabeth I of England, deemed "a very human portrait of an important monarch" by School Library Journal contributor Nancy Mendaldi-Scanlon. Saladin, Noble Prince of Islam concerns the twelfth-century Muslim ruler who united his people and battled against the Christian crusaders. According to Booklist critic Ilene Cooper, "the generally strong telling is more than matched by glorious paintings that mirror Islamic art-work of the times," and Kathleen T. Isaacs wrote in School Library Journal that Stanley presents "a fresh view of a conflict that still reverberates today."

Stanley produced her first book for young adults, the novel A Time Apart, in 1999. In this work, which was inspired by a British Broadcasting Company (BBC) miniseries about an actual Iron Age farm, thirteen-year-old Ginny Dorris leaves Houston to stay in England with her British father while her American mother undergoes treatment for breast cancer. Her father, a professor who is divorced from Ginny's mother, is part of an experimental archaeological project that is replicating an Iron Age village. Battling homesickness and the primitive conditions of her new home, Ginny runs away from the experimental village and books a flight back to Houston with a credit card she has stolen from her father. Her father realizes what she has done and why, and eventually jeopardizes his career by leaving the project to go to Houston after her. After realizing how sick her mother is, Ginny returns to England with her father for a few more months. As the story progresses, Ginny learns to adapt and even flourishes under the difficult conditions of the Iron Age village. As she becomes immersed in the daily life of the community, she discovers hidden strengths and learns to appreciate living her simpler lifestyle; in addition, she becomes closer to her father. Writing in Booklist, Sally Estes called A Time Apart a "very appealing novel" as well as an "enchanting 'time travel' into reality."

In The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine, Stanley's second novel for young adults, the author "explores the power of the written word," according to School Library Journal critic Terrie Dorio. In the work, fifth-grader Franny Sharp notices that the bizarre ailments plaguing the children at her school bear a striking similarity to the events described in the plots of a wildly popular series of horror novels. Upon investigation, Franny and her friends discover that the reclusive Ida May Fine, author of the "Chiller" books, intends to use her works as part of a twisted revenge scheme. "Stanley cheerfully sends up horror series fiction," remarked a critic in Publishers Weekly, who added that The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine, "should engage both ambitious readers and diehard fans of the genre it satirizes."

In her "Time-Traveling Twins" series for young readers, Stanley introduces look-alike siblings Liz and Lenny. With the help of their grandmother's magic hat, the twins are transported back to the pioneer days of 1843 in Roughing It on the Oregon Trail. Liz, Lenny, and Grandma return in Joining the Boston Tea Party, "a humorous and painlessly informative introduction to an important chapter in American history," observed Carey Ayres in School Library Journal. While visiting their ancestors in 1773, the trio become enmeshed in the politics of the day, dressing as Mohawks and helping throw tea into the harbor. Booklist reviewer Helen Rosenberg stated that "the dialogue bubbles, blending historical tidbits with modern-day humor." In a third tale, Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation, the three time-travelers celebrate the harvest feast with the first
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colonists and their Wampanoag neighbors. "Stanley's facts are informative and instructive," noted a critic in Kirkus Reviews.

Stanley has also written and illustrated a number of "fractured" fairy tales, including Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter, Goldie and the Three Bears, and The Giant and the Beanstalk. In Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter, "a witty mix of fable and farce," in the words of Booklist critic Hazel Rochman, the title character outwits a greedy, foolish king. Friendship is the subject of Goldie and the Three Bears. After getting off at the wrong bus stop, the independent Goldie wanders into a strange home to seek help. There she discovers that one of the inhabitants enjoys many of the same things she does, and when Baby Bear arrives home, they share the joy of bouncing on his bed. "The pictures alone are delectable, at once saucy and tender," wrote Horn Book reviewer Barbara Bader. In The Giant and the Beanstalk, Stanley focuses on the gentle giant who must overcome his fear of heights to search for his kidnapped pet hen. A Publishers Weekly contributor remarked that "the story leads up to a felicitous finale, but the twists and turns readers takes along the way make this tale as original as Stanley fans have come to expect."

Assessing her life and career, Stanley wrote in SAAS, "Looking at the life I have made for myself, I feel terribly grateful to have found work that is satisfying and useful…. The fact is that I love my work. To balance my work is my family life, for which I am also grateful…. For what more could a person ask?"