Ellen Levine, Golden Kite Winner, Dies -
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Ellen Levine, Golden Kite Winner, Dies
Ellen Levine, a SCBWI Golden Kite winner, teacher, mentor, and passionate advocate for social justice, died peacefully in New York on May 26 after a valiant battle with lung cancer. She was 73.
Ellen was the author of many popular fiction and non-fiction books for children, young readers, and adults, which focused on important social issues and historical periods. Her children’s books told stories of slaves, immigrants, and the fight for social justice. Ellen’s rigorous research and devotion to accuracy made her stories compelling. Henry's Freedom Box (Caldecott Honor, 2008) is the true story of a slave who mailed himself to freedom. Darkness Over Denmark details the rescue of Jews by the Danes in World War II. It won the SCBWI Golden Kite Award in 2001. A Fence Away from Freedom relates the internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940s. Freedom's Children, a profile of young black civil rights activists in the 1960s, was termed "nothing short of wonderful" in a New York Times review. I Hate English, about a Chinese girl struggling to learn English, has become a resource for ESL teachers. Ellen’s most recent novel, In Trouble, was published as she was undergoing treatment for her cancer in the last year of her life. It tells the story of two pregnant girls in the l950s and reflects her profound belief that the right to abortion is an individual choice, and that whatever one's ultimate decision, it must be viewed with compassion and respect.
Ellen Deborah Levine was born on March 9, 1939, in New York. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a theater and arts critic.
She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University, M.A. University of Chicago, and J.D. NYU School of Law.
Before she began writing, Ellen clerked for Chief Judge Joseph Lord, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and practiced law for the Prisoners Rights Project, NY Legal Aid Society. She also worked on documentaries for CBS television. "I grew up," she wrote, "knowing there were battles to be fought and worlds to change." She is survived by her recent spouse and beloved partner of forty years, the author Anne Koedt, and her sister, Mada Liebman.
Ellen would have appreciated donations in her memory to Planned Parenthood or a progressive agency of your choice.