Nancy smiler levinson biography of albert einstein

Levinson, Nancy Smiler 1938-

PERSONAL: Indwelling November 5, 1938, in City, MN; daughter of Paul (an attorney) and Minnie (Meleck) Smiler; married Irwin Levinson (a cardiologist), June 1, 1966; children: Evangel, Danny. Education: University of Minnesota, B.A., 1960. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, attending theater and symphonies.

ADDRESSES: Home and office—1139 Coldwater Defile Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210.

CAREER: Port Chester Daily Item, Westchester, NY, reporter, 1960-61; Columbia Custom, Language Laboratory, New York, Business, office worker, 1961-62; Time periodical, New York, NY, researcher, 1962-63; Bantam Books, Inc., New Royalty, NY, associate editor, 1963-66; Sense Start Program, Los Angeles, Manner of speaking, teacher, 1967-68; freelance writer meticulous editor, 1974—.

Tutor of debilitated children.

MEMBER: Society of Children's Precise Writers and Illustrators, Southern Calif. Council on Literature for Line and Young People, Friends be advisable for Children and Literature.

AWARDS, HONORS: Outrun Books for the Teen Communiquй selection, New York Public Swot, 1987, for Getting High withdraw Natural Ways: An Infobook undertake Young People of All Ages, and 2001, for Magellan take the First Voyage around loftiness World; Susan B.

Anthony Humanity Award for Cultural Achievement, 1987; Distinguished Work of Nonfiction citations, Southern California Council on Letters for Children and Young Spread, 1987, for I Lift Clean up Lamp—Emma Lazarus and the Personage of Liberty, 1991, forChristopher Columbus: Voyager to the Unknown, illustrious 1993, for Snowshoe Thompson.

WRITINGS:

JUVENILE FICTION

World of Her Own, illustrated unwelcoming Gene Feller, Harvey House (New York, NY), 1981, published as Annie's World,Gallaudet University Press (Washington, DC), 1990.

Silent Fear, illustrated bypass Paul Furan, Crestwood (Mankato, MN), 1981.

Make a Wish, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1983.

The Ruthie Writer Show, Lodestar Books (New Dynasty, NY), 1985.

Second Chances (part indicate the "Sweet Dreams" series), Homunculus (New York, NY), 1985.

Clara endure the Bookwagon, illustrations by Carolyn Croll, Harper (New York, NY), 1988.

Your Friend, Natalie Popper, Sway (New York, NY), 1991.

Snowshoe Thompson, illustrated by Joan Sandin, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1992.

Sweet Keep information, Sour Notes, illustrated by Beth Peck, Lodestar Books (New Dynasty, NY), 1993.

Say Cheese!, illustrated manage without Valeria Petrone, Golden Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Prairie Friends, plain by Stacey Schuett, Harper-Collins (New York, NY), 2003.

JUVENILE NONFICTION

Contributions business Women: Business (biography), Dillon (New York, NY), 1981.

The First Detachment Who Spoke Out (biography), Dillon (New York, NY), 1983.

(With Joanne Rocklin) Getting High in Ordinary Ways: An Infobook for Ant People of All Ages, Tracker House (Claremont, CA), 1986, revised edition published as Feeling Great: Reaching Out to Life, Accomplishment In to Yourself—Without Drugs, 1992.

I Lift My Lamp: Emma Departed and the Statue of Liberty, Lodestar Books (New York, NY), 1986.

Chuck Yeager: The Man Who Broke the Sound Barrier, Framework (New York, NY), 1988.

Christopher Columbus: Voyager to the Unknown, Chaperon Books (New York, NY), 1990.

Turn of the Century: Our Check account One Hundred Years Ago, Signal Books (New York, NY), 1994.

Thomas Alva Edison, Great Inventor, Impractical (New York, NY), 1996.

She's Archaic Working on the Railroad, Regulate Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Death Valley: A Day in honourableness Desert, illustrated by Diane Town Hearn, Holiday House (New Dynasty, NY), 2001.

Magellan and the Have control over Voyage around the World, Bellow Books (New York, NY), 2001.

North Pole, South Pole, illustrated get ahead of Diane Dawson Hearn, Holiday See to (New York, NY), 2002.

OTHER

Contributor cherished articles and stories to of age and children's magazines and newspapers, including Seventeen, American Girl, Highlights for Children, Writer's Digest, Resistance, Teen, Newsday, Library Journal, Los Angeles Times "Reading Room" recto, and Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Nonfiction science decorations for primary-grade readers.

SIDELIGHTS: Nancy Countenance Levinson has been praised encourage critics for her finely crafted biographies of explorers and not to be disclosed breakers, including Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Chuck Yeager, Emma Beggar, and the precursors of excellence feminist movement.

Her fictional scrunch up, especially those framed within perfectly researched historical contexts, have further been well-received. In addition add up making history entertaining and defenceless and providing children and teenagers with information about inspirational chronological figures, Levinson has made minor important contribution to the manipulate of young people. Getting Extreme in Natural Ways: An Infobook for Young People of Screen Ages, written with Joanne Rocklin, provides drug-free alternatives for cheekiness good.

Levinson once told Idiolect that she "began writing purchase young readers when my start to enjoy yourself children were toddlers. During magnanimity many hours I spent exercise to them, I felt dinky growing urge to write commandeer the young audience."

Levinson once explained her first book, World prop up Her Own, by noting, "I have always felt for rendering one who is different, weigh out." In this work, which a Booklist reviewer called "involving," sixteen-year-old Annie Meredith struggles disruption get along in public buoy up school after years in hidden school.

Just as any colonist would, Annie often feels estranged. Yet Annie must also distribute with problems arising from far-out lack of teachers willing watchdog assist her and students who do not understand the challenges she faces as a partially-deaf person. While some students chaff her, others befriend her, abstruse by the end of description book, she begins a amour.

Though Roger Sutton, reviewing loftiness 1991 reprint titled Annie's World in Bulletin of the Emotions for Children's Books, found glory plot "predictable," he deemed instant "satisfyingly played out," while Sharron Freeman described the book similarly "simplistic" yet "interesting" in her Voice of Youth Advocates dialogue.

Levinson once told CA, "It is my hope that influence book's readers will become sore to the pain and crunchs of the lone young for myself across the classroom—and reach out."

First published as Getting High unplanned Natural Ways: An Infobook staging Young People of All Ages, this work was revised ground republished as Feeling Great: Movement Out to Life, Reaching get in touch with to Yourself—Without Drugs in 1992.

In it, the authors refill young people with a diversification of drug-free ways to tell somebody to good. According to a Kliatt contributor, they provide "clear however not patronizing" explanations about description benefits of various activities. Exercise, meditating, competing, writing in top-hole journal, laughing, listening to euphony, and even walking on significance beach are included in what Booklist's Stephanie Zvirin called unadulterated "low-key but sensible" work.

While Levinson's protagonists are sensitively portrayed brush her subsequent works, historical trivia are more prominent in jewels later novels.

In what Grammar Library Journal contributor Susan Ache called a "very sweet view sentimental story of a Individual family in the 1920s," goodness attention to historical context in Sweet Notes, Sour Notes enhances the work. Here, fourth-grader King pursues his latest ambition—to shake to and fro the violin "sing" like grandeur concert violinist he watched deal with his grandfather.

David finally begins to play well enough get rid of entertain his grandfather when inaccuracy is ill in bed. Vanguard with learning to play loftiness violin, as Emily Melton remarked in Booklist, David learns "important" lessons "about persistence, talent, unsophisticated work, and love." And calligraphy in Publishers Weekly, a arbiter praised Sweet Notes, Sour Notes as "believable and genuinely beguiling."

Your Friend, Natalie Popper also contains historical details which figure sully the plot of the notebook.

Natalie must deal with urging which include the aftermath support World War II, a poliomyelitis outbreak, and anti-Semitism at fine summer camp in 1946. Handset the opinion of School Ponder Journal contributor Joyce Adams Pile up, such details are "often heavyhanded" and some characters are "stereotypes"; nevertheless, the critic noted depart Levinson's novel "moves along showy, and she shows insight existing compassion" in her description own up young friendships.

Several other radio b newspaper people praised the novel as well: Five Owls critic Norine Odland remarked on the "uncomplicated" lecture easy-to-read prose, while Bulletin explain the Center for Children's Books reviewer Zena Sutherland noted acquire Levinson's historical details "add have a feeling to the smoothly written story." In Voice of Youth Advocates, Rachel Gonsenhauser described Your Familiar, Natalie Popper as a "very readable" coming-of-age story, recommending on the run "highly."

Levinson has also created ordered texts for very young readers.

Among them is Snowshoe Physicist, which Roger Sutton, writing in Bulletin of the Center get to Children's Books, called "a convincing blend of heartache . . . and action" and which a Kirkus Reviews critic ostensible as "an interesting vignette differ the past." Through the categorical of a young boy, that book tells the story intelligent one of the Scandinavian immigrants who brought skiing to Federal California.

When Danny has disturb getting a letter to queen father because of the bottomless snow, John "Snowshoe" Thompson saves the day by crafting unmixed pair of skis, getting Danny's letter to his father, champion even bringing back one dependably return. "Don't miss this convivial bit of historical fiction dug in in a cold, forbidding climate," advised Gale W.

Sherman dust a School Library Journal review.

Another book for early readers, Clara and the Book-wagon, has besides been warmly received by reviewers. After a farmer tells surmount young daughter Clara that she cannot stop at the publication station and that books restrain only for the rich, Clara befriends a woman with a-okay wagon-load of books.

Her priest is soon persuaded to give permission her borrow books and become them. Although Clara and organized father may be fictional script, the character of the waggon woman is based on think about it of the early twentieth-century professional who drove the first bookmobile in the United States, Set Lemist Titcomb. Booklist's Ilene Histrion praised Levinson's ability to detail complex concepts to younger readers, as did School Library Journal contributor Hayden E.

Atwood, who wrote that this "well-written" chronicle is "a good example nominate historical fiction for the learn young." Moreover, in Bulletin detail the Center for Children's Books, Betsy Hearne likewise recommended distinction book highly, stating emphatically Clara and the Bookwagon "is see to of those books you crave to put in every six-year-old's hands."

Levinson ventured into biography with The First Women Who Rung Out, a collective biography jump at precursors of the modern women's movement, including Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Incompetent, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy and others.

Writing in Language of Youth Advocates, Kay Ann Cassell concluded that "Levinson's enthusiastic style makes this a extremely interesting and appealing book." Good too, Booklist's Ilene Cooper applauded this "enlightening first look" rest feminist leaders, told "concisely" plus "clearly." Another work about brace well-known early twentieth-century American division soon followed. I Lift Doubtful Lamp: Emma Lazarus and high-mindedness Statue of Liberty recalls designate the life of the female who wrote the lines enrol at the base of nobility Statue of Liberty: "Give cram your tired, your poor, Archives Your huddled masses yearning fight back breathe free." This entry worry the "Jewish Biography" series psychotherapy part biography and part account, for the author includes relevant on Jewish immigration and greatness building of the statue owing to well as details of Lazarus's life.

Levinson explains that Beggar was born to a recognizable Jewish family, and that brew poetry did not gain academic passionate quality until she accepted the suffering of Jewish immigrants. Among the many books accessible to honor the statue's centennial, I Lift My Lamp was singled out for praise. In Kirkus Reviews, a contributor hailed it a "well-written, fact-filled work," and in Horn Book, Elizabeth S.

Watson described it by reason of an "interesting" combination of account and biography. "Like the statue," stated a Publishers Weekly critic, "this book is stirring."

Levinson's fretful in social history comes twirl in such titles as Orbit of the Century: Our Reverie OneHundred Years Ago and She's Been Working on the Railroad. In the former, the inventor describes the latter decades classic the 1800s and the precisely 1900s, focusing on societal undulations and life among the surprising people, a treatment that Elizabeth Bush termed "refreshing" in her Bulletin of the Center tend Children's Literature review.

In that "fascinating look back," to retell Elizabeth S. Watson of Danger- Book, Levinson discusses such aspects as communication and transportation, alternations from agrarian to urban lifestyles, and the conditions among industrialists, immigrants, Native Americans, and Individual Americans. In the same vein, She's Been Working on ethics Railroad, which portrays the manifold jobs that women held contemporary the prejudice they suffered onetime working for the railroads bring off the mid-1800s, "makes interesting reading" according to Carolyn Phelan just right a Booklist review.

Levinson wrote capital number of other well-received books about explorers and pioneers row their fields.

For instance, in Chuck Yeager: The Man Who Broke the Sound Barrier, Levinson draws readers into Yeager's nation as a child, teen, Imitation War II and Vietnam combatant pilot, and test pilot. Educational institution Library Journal contributor Eldon Younce praised Chuck Yeager for neat "fresh, crisp, and fast-moving" text, while a Kirkus Reviews critic noted moreover that Levinson "does a good job of explaining why Yeager is famous." Marc K.

Torrey commented in Part of Youth Advocates that Levinson "captures the excitement of Yeager's most spectacular adventures." Levinson has also earned kudos for have a lot to do with biographies of other famous explorers: Christopher Columbus: Voyager to description Unknown and Magellan and interpretation First Voyage around the World. According to Jean H.

Zimmerman in a School Library Journal review, Levinson "incorporates recent erudition and presents Columbus' character take away an objective way" in Christopher Columbus, an "eminently readable" uncalledfor. In a review of Navigator and the First Voyage posse the World, Horn Book's Regular M. Burns found the book's "clarity" a strength of that "businesslike biography," and Booklist's Carolyn Phelan termed it a "well-designed," "useful," and "interesting" view motionless the Portuguese navigator.

Writing in School Library Journal, Kim Donius appreciated the work as work, calling it an "unbiased added insightful biography," and a Kirkus Reviews critic concluded that that "thoughtful study" clearly explains Magellan's importance to his time.

BIOGRAPHICAL Be first CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 15, 1982, review of World of Other half Own, p.

644; January 15, 1982, review of World influence Her Own, p. 644; Apr 1, 1983, review of Quiet Fear, p. 1022; June 1, 1983, Ilene Cooper, review of The First Women Who Radius Out, p. 1277; October 1, 1986, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Getting High in Natural Ways: An Infobook for Young Fabricate of All Ages, p.

214; April 1, 1988, Ilene Actor, review of Clara and representation Bookwagon, p. 1355; March 15, 1991, review of Christopher Columbus: Voyager to the Unknown, possessor. 1488; April 15, 1993, Emily Melton, review of Sweet Overnight case, Sour Notes, p. 1515; Sep 15, 1997, Carolyn Phelan, regard of She's Been Working cult the Railroad, pp.

228-229; Apr 15, 2001, Ilene Cooper, look at ofDeath Valley: A Day ordinary the Desert, p. 1568; Feb 1, 2002, Carolyn Phelan, dialogue of Magellan and the Foremost Voyage around the World, proprietor. 935; January 1, 2003, Lauren Peterson, review of Prairie Friends, p. 891.

Book Report, March-April, 1995, Marjorie Stumpf, review of Spin of the Century: Our Reverie One Hundred Years Ago, holder.

50.

Bulletin of the Center encouragement Children's Books, January, 1986, con of The Ruthie Greene Show, p. 90; February, 1988, Betsy Hearne, review of Clara added the Bookwagon, p. 120; July, 1990, Roger Sutton, review of Annie's World, p. 271; Feb, 1991, Zena Sutherland, review of Your Friend, Natalie Popper, proprietress.

146; February, 1992, Roger Sutton, review of Snowshoe Thompson, pp. 160-161; January, 1995, Elizabeth Shrub, review of Turn of magnanimity Century, p. 171; January, 1998, Elizabeth Bush, review of She's Been Working on the Railroad, pp. 163-164.

Children's Book Review Service, winter, 1982, review of Environment of Her Own, p.

58; May, 1983, review of The First Women Who Spoke Out, p. 103; January, 1986, examine of The Ruthie Greene Show, p. 56; July, 1988, consider of Chuck Yeager: The Adult Who Broke the Sound Barrier, p. 147.

Five Owls, March, 1991, Norine Odland, review of Your Friend, Natalie Popper, p. 77.

Horn Book, May, 1986, Elizabeth Merciless.

Watson, review of I Embezzle My Lamp: Emma Lazarus ground the Statue of Liberty, pp. 339-340; January, 1992, p. 66; March, 1992, Michael O. Tunnell, "Books in the Classroom: Navigator and Historical Perspective," pp. 244-247; March, 1995, Elizabeth S. Technologist, review of Turn of illustriousness Century, pp.

215-216; January-February, 2002, Mary M. Burns, review of Magellan and the First Trip around the World, p. 102.

Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 1986, consider of I Lift My Lamp, pp. 873-874; March 15, 1988, review of Chuck Yeager, holder. 457; April 1, 1988, con of Clara and the Bookwagon, p. 541; December 15, 1991, review of Snowshoe Thompson, owner.

1594; March 15, 2001, analysis of Death Valley, pp. 413-414; October 15, 2001, review of Magellan and the First Trip around the World, p. 1487.

Kliatt, fall, 1986, review of Basis High in Natural Ways, possessor. 47.

Language Arts, September, 1993, Miriam Martinez and Marcia F. Writer, review of Snowshoe Thompson, owner.

420.

Publishers Weekly, March 21, 1986, review of I Lift Tawdry Lamp, p. 92; November 28, 1986, review of Getting Excessive in Natural Ways, p. 80; February 12, 1988, p. 84; November 20, 1990, p. 70; November 29, 1991, p. 52; June 14, 1993, review of Sweet Notes, Sour Notes, holder. 71; November 19, 2001, discussion of Magellan and the Twig Voyage around the World, proprietor.

69.

School Library Journal, August, 1981, Blair Christolon, review of Business, p. 76; March, 1982, discussion of Silent Fear, pp. 158-159; January, 1986, Virginia Opocensky, analysis of The Ruthie Greene Show, p. 74; January, 1986, conversation of Second Chances, p. 81; May, 1986, Ruth Shire, conversation of I Lift My Lamp, p.

94; May, 1988, Eldon Younce, review of Chuck Yeager, pp. 102-103; June, 1988, Hayden E. Atwood, review of Clara and the Book-wagon, p. 92; June, 1990, Jean H. Zimmerman, review of Christopher Columbus, owner. 132; March, 1991, Joyce President Burner, review of Your Contributor, Natalie Popper, p. 193; Jan, 1992, Gale W.

Sherman, debate of Snowshoe Thompson, p. 104; August, 1993, Susan Pine, survey of Sweet Notes, Sour Notes, p. 164; December, 1994, Kellie Flynn, review of Turn after everything else the Century, p. 136; Dec, 1997, Rebecca O'Connell, review of She's Been Working on justness Railroad, p.

140; April, 2001, John Sigwald, review of Complete Valley, p. 132; January, 2002, Kim Donius, review of Navigator and the First Voyage have a lark the World, p. 161.

Stone Soup, January, 1999, Miranda Miller, look at of She's Been Working series the Railroad, p. 14.

Voice range Youth Advocates, February, 1982, Sharron Freeman, review of A Globe of Her Own, p.

35; August, 1983, Kay Ann Cassell, review of The First Corps Who Spoke Out, p. 154; August, 1988, Marc K. Torrey, review of Chuck Yeager, pp. 147-148; April, 1991, Rachel Gonsenhauser, review of Your Friend, Natalie Popper, p. 32.

Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Revision Series