Over the course of the two and a half years I researched the life of beloved author Marguerite Henry for my Marguerite Henry biography Marguerite, Misty and Me, I read countless notes in her handwriting. Some of her notes were typed. Marguerite Henry's notes revealed her creative process.
Photo used with permission of the Kerlan Collection of Children's Literature at the University of Minnesota.
My first clue that Marguerite was a voracious researcher was the typed transcript I read which was a phone conversation between her and a Clydesdale expert. It seemed as though her interviewee was a man of few words. Marguerite peppered him with questions about how an in hand class worked. She wanted the man to vividly describe the experience so that an elementary school child could picture it.
Some of Marguerite's notes for the Newbery Medal winner, King of the Wind, were scribbled on the back of the pages of a 1947 calendar. Her father was a printer, and it was a calendar advertising Breithaupt Printing, the family business.
Marguerite's notes for Justin Morgan Had a Horse and Stormy, Misty's Foal possessed a poetic quality. As she wrote of Vermont, the setting of Justin Morgan's story, she described the green mountains and sun dappled roads.
You might also like this blog post: Writing Advice from Marguerite Henry.
For Stormy, the Misty of Chincoteague follow up title which described the deadly Nor'easter of 1962, Marguerite described the rain starting as little plip plops and then beating angrily. She conveyed the innocence of a few starting sprinkles of water, then shows the transformation to ominous, hard-hitting sprays of water.
Whenever Marguerite got an idea, she jotted it down. The most hilarious item I found her writing on was the back of a piece of cardboard that was an insert for a tablecloth--you know, the rectangular piece that allows for the tablecloth to be folded neatly in the wrapping. lol
Snag your copy of Marguerite, Misty and Me here.
Perhaps the most inspirational note I read was taped to the back of an award she won for the book Mustang, Wild Spirit of the West: "Getting an idea should be like sitting on a tack. It should make you want to get up to do something about it."
Marguerite's taped note provides sound, timeless advice for her dear readers and riders, and for us all.
