Betty Boegehold

Betty Boegehold
Born(1913-09-15)September 15, 1913[1]
New York City[1]
DiedApril 7, 1985(1985-04-07) (aged 71)[1][2]
Bronxville, New York[2]
Other namesDonovan Doyle[1]
OccupationChildren's author[2]
Years active1965–1985[3]
Children1[2]

Betty Virginia Doyle Boegehold[a] (September 15, 1913 – April 7, 1985) was an American children's author, known for the Pippa Mouse series.

Life and career

Born in 1913 in New York City,[1] Boegehold was a resident of Bronxville, New York.[5] A graduate of Wellesley College in 1935 and Columbia University in 1943,[1] she began her teaching career in 1948[5] and joined New York's Bank Street Writers Workshop in 1967,[2] where she also researched education methods.[5] During her career, she was also a librarian and preschool teacher.[4]

Boegehold's works—among them a fairy tale with black characters, stories of young characters in urban areas as opposed to rural and suburban, and a piece featuring a working mother—tackled traditional stereotypes found in children's material in her time. She also used animal characters to express human emotions to her readers.[5] Later titles of hers "dealt with societal issues facing children".[1]

One of Boegehold's early manuscripts initially told the tale of a boy mouse named Pippen, but a lecture on literary sexism convinced her to change the character's name and gender.[5] The resulting book, Pippa Mouse, became a bestseller[5] and led to a series.[2]

Boegehold contributed to children's magazines under her real name,[3] as well as Houghton Mifflin's Discovery series;[4] she also wrote under the pseudonym of Donovan Doyle.[4] While she reportedly died of a heart attack[2] on April 7, 1985,[1] her works remained in print as of 2005.[6][7] One of her final books, You Can Say "NO",[8] underwent a 1987 censorship challenge at Starke, Florida's school board over its sexual content.[9]

Selected works

Series

  • Bank Street Reading Series[3]
  • Pippa Mouse[5]

Standalone

  • Three to Get Ready (1965)[3]
  • Paw Paw's Run (1969)[4]
  • What the Wind Told (1974)[4]
  • Education Before Five (1975)[4]
  • Small Deer's Magic Tricks (1977)[4]
  • Beat Underground (1980)[4]
  • Chipper's Choices (1981)[3]
  • In the Castle of Cats (1981)[3]
  • The Pleasure of Their Company: How to Have More Fun with Your Children (1981; with William Hooks)[4]
  • Getting Ready to Read (1984)[10]
  • Daddy Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1985)[11]
  • You Can Say "NO" (1985)[8]

As Donovan Doyle

These five titles were published by Houghton Mifflin.[4]

Notes

  1. ^ In 1984, Gale's Contemporary Authors gave the surname's pronunciation as "Berg-a-hold".[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "de Grummond Collection: Betty Bogehold Papers". University of Southern Mississippi. June 2001 [June 16, 1998]. Retrieved October 21, 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Betty D. Boegehold, 71, Dies; Writer of Books for Children". The New York Times. April 9, 1985. p. A24. Retrieved July 14, 2011.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Ward, Martha Eads; Marquardt, Dorothy A.; Dolan, Nancy; Eaton, Dawn (1990). "Boegehold, Betty Virginia (Doyle) 1913–1985". Authors of Books for Young People (Third ed.). Scarecrow Press. p. 69. ISBN 0-8108-2293-8. Retrieved October 21, 2025 – via Archive.org.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Metzger, Linda, ed. (1984). "Boegehold, Betty (Doyle) 1913–". Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series. Vol. 12. Gale Research. p. 68. ISBN 0-8103-1941-1. Retrieved October 23, 2025 – via Archive.org.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Connell, Tara (November 20, 1973). "Author of a child's imaginings". Mount Vernon Argus. p. 9. Retrieved October 21, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ Connor, Anne (October 1999). "Hurray for Christmas! / Patrick's Christmas Tree". School Library Journal. Vol. 45, no. 10. p. 65. ISSN 0362-8930. Retrieved October 21, 2025 – via ProQuest.
  7. ^ "Bunny Tails". Publishers Weekly. Vol. 252, no. 7. February 14, 2005. p. 76. ISSN 0000-0019. Retrieved October 21, 2025 – via ProQuest.
  8. ^ a b Tavris, Carol (November 10, 1985). "Children's Books -- Child Abuse: Real Dangers and False Alarms: [Review]". The New York Times. p. A.48. Retrieved October 23, 2025 – via ProQuest.
  9. ^ Weiss, Kenneth R. (August 10, 1987). "Florida nears top in censorship tries". Gainesville Sun. p. 7A. Retrieved October 21, 2025 – via Google News Archive.
  10. ^ Quorn, Kerry (January 1985). "Review of Getting Ready to Read". The Reading Teacher. 38 (4). John Wiley and Sons: 469–470. ISSN 0034-0561. JSTOR 20198816. Retrieved October 23, 2025 – via JSTOR.
  11. ^ Kreiger, Elliot (September 4, 1985). "Helping Kids Deal with Problems". Philadelphia Daily News. Providence Journal. Retrieved October 23, 2025 – via ProQuest.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.