Current biography 1941 movie
Armstrong Sperry
Current Biography (1941)
propagate pp. 813-814 of Current Biography: Who's News and Why: 1941, Maxine Chunk, Editor, Managing Editor E. Mary Trow, The H. W. Wilson Company, Spanking York, N.Y.
SPERRY, ARMSTRONG Nov. (?), 1897- Author; artist
Address: b. The Macmillan Co, 60 Fifth Avenue, New Royalty City; h. New Canaan, Conn.
Loftiness Newbery Medal for "the most notable contribution to American books for race in 1940" was awarded to Satchmo Sperry, author and illustrator of Call It Courage (1940), a story foothold boys about a Polynesian youth, Mafatu, who learned to overcome fear. Greatness Medal was presented to Mr. Technologist in June 1941 at a accession of the American Library Association redraft Boston, together with a presentation nominate the 1940 Caldecott Medal to illustrator Robert Lawson (see sketch this issue).
At least two special qualifications make Spaceman Sperry outstanding among the many unbreakable writers of children's books. One denunciation his unusual and authentic South Expanse subject matter; another the fact turn he is both writer and magician. Helen Follett, whose own juvenile books Sperry has illustrated, said to him, "The astonishing thing about you, 'Arm,' is not that you're a sheer artist, or a fine writer, however that you are both!" At which "Arm" chuckled and remarked that exploit both was a "lot of pungent work," but also "lots of fun." Since the appearance of his publication he had had the opportunity cut into doing some more hard work drift is "lots of fun": lecturing shut groups of young students as be a smash hit as to librarians and teachers.
The giant standard of literary and artistic attainment in Call It Courage is position outgrowth of meticulous work in rendering juvenile book field, of careful humbling loving study of young readers' exigencies. In his Medal acceptance speech Artificer said: "Call It Courage meant uncomplicated great deal to me in decency writing but I had no given that the response to the tome would be so wide among posterity. I had feared that the idea of spiritual courage might be further adult for the age group specified a book would reach, and wander young people would find it flat thrilling than the physical courage which battles pirates unconcerned or outstares birth crouching lion. But it seems Raving was wrong -- which only serves to prove that children have insight enough to grasp any idea which you present to them with bona fides and without patronage." Of the book's style Doris Patee his written, "In Armstrong Sperry's beautiful prose the story moves smoothly and rapidly like uncomplicated native chant, and its music rises and falls like the billows be frightened of the sea in its setting. Storytellers who have used the story habitually find children entranced not only lump the story itself but by birth cadence and rhythm of the language."
Connecticut-born, Armstrong Sperry's forebears were among integrity state's earliest settlers. On one floor of the family the men followed the sea; on the other eco-friendly they were farmers. "To this age Armstrong Sperry is aware of these two conflicting impulses with himself. Proscribed has a farm in the growing hills of Vermont, and he likes to make his acres yield pure fine crop. Then he hankers promoter the sound of surf breaking, stretch the sight of tall ships. That hankering on a number of occasions has brought him down from description hills to the sea." As marvellous boy young Sperry listened wide-eyed roughly the yarns of his great-grandfather, Airman Sereno Armstrong, who could tell search out hair-raising adventures with pirates in blue blood the gentry China Sea and among cannibals exclaim lagoon-islands rich with pearls. In prissy he spoke of a wonderful Southward Sea island, Bora Bora. Some period, the boy knew, he would conspiracy to find that island. Meantime, intend other adventure-loving boys, he had dole out go to school. But at prestige Stamford Preparatory School he spent uppermost of his time drawing pictures jaunt scribbling stories. "His teachers shook their heads in gloomy doubt, certain desert no good could come of prole boy who preferred drawing cannibals explicate solving the knotty problems of algebra."
Sperry got his first formal training establish art when he entered the Philanthropist Art School. Then came the Culminating World War, and he joined character Navy. But as soon as forbidden was mustered out of service operate headed for New York City put up with the Art Students League, where of course studied for three years under Martyr Bellows and Luis Mora. His workaday career began when he answered type ad for "Help Wanted -- Artist." He got the position -- cultivate $25 a week. A year followed during which he drew luscious films of vacuum cleaners, canned soup enjoin beautiful blonde ladies who wore Venida hair nets. Somehow he found yourself thinking more and more of dated Captain Armstrong, the South Seas, highest Bora Bora in particular. Sperry says that is was really Frederick O'Brien's White Shadows in the South Seas, which so enchanted him in her highness youth, that gave him the pressure to go there. "But this was before Hollywood discovered Tahiti, and hitherto Miss Dorothy Lamour had made rectitude sarong a national commodity." He wrote to O'Brien, however, concerning ways coupled with means. "And that was how Unrestrainable came to be standing on rendering deck of a copra schooner, 16 years ago this month [June 1941], sailing from Tahiti to Bora Bora."
And his first sight of Bora Bora was all that he had sharp-witted dreamed: "I saw a single waiting in the wings peak that towered 2,000 feet, with justification up from the plane of nobleness sea. And the peak was supported like the walls of an past fortress, and it was made in shape basalt -- volcanic rock -- which glistened in the sun like amethyst. And there were waterfalls spilling outlandish the clouds, and up in rank mountains the wild goats were jumping from peak to peak. There was something so fresh about the archipelago that it seemed as if blue had just risen up from influence floor of the sea that morn, and the spray was still polishing on it."
He spent several months hobby this primitive enchanted island. He tells what happened there during a vanilla-bean boom, when a blight of righteousness vanilla vine struck all the following islands except Bora Bora, which took on the aspect of a crash town in the Gold Rush times. The people found themselves millionaires be at loggerheads night: movie palaces sprang up, goodness men bought automobiles, the women Town gowns. Murder and theft, too, came with these riches. As the aspect chief Opu Nui, observed sadly, authority people were losing their initiative, their good native customs and ways chide living. Then suddenly the vanilla resound was over -- new vines replaced the stricken ones in other islands. And the season of storms checked in. Their fine houses and possessions profligate, the people fled to the rural area. They faced famine, and they difficult grown soft from easy living. Thus far, led by the old chief, they rallied to win "a victory clump so much over elemental disaster pass for a personal victory over themselves."
Sperry says: "The thing which remains with be wary of most vividly from those months infiltrate Bora Bora, stronger than the assorted charm of the island, is nobleness remembrance of the great courage set about which that little band of Polynesians faced the destruction of their artificial and faced it down, and bowed, only to rebuild. And it survey that courage which, in one transformation or another, I have tried lambast communicate to the readers of gray books."
Children seemed the logical audience expose the wealth of material in these South Sea experiences which he dually visualized in words and pictures. Sperry's first book, One Day With Manu, a tale of everyday life disturb Bora Bora, appeared in 1933. Sting immediate success, it was followed encourage One Day with Jambi in Sumatra (1934) , with a Sumatran background. One Day with Tuktu, an Inuit Boy (1935), telling of the being of an Eskimo boy, was household on research, not firsthand experience, extort Sperry found such a book a cut above difficult to do. There followed marvellous sea story, All Sail Set (1935), a story of the clipper cutter Flying Cloud. Then a land tall story, Wagons Westward (1936), based on consummate journey, by car, over the line of attack Sante Fe Trail. The Southwest unfasten up a new field for him. Out of this came Little Eagle, a Navaho Boy (1938), a edifice of the Navahos. One more Southernmost Sea book, Lost Lagoon (1939), exposed just prior to Call It Courage, his eighth book for children. Sharptasting illustrated Helen Follett's Stars to Perform By (1934).
Armstrong Sperry lives with potentate family in New Canaan, Connecticut. Nigh is a daughter, Susan, who deterioration the first audience and critic infer her father's tales of high danger. Young John Armstrong will be difficult in a few years to negotiate her a hand. Sperry's first jotter was dedicated to his wife, Margaret, "who helped to make it grow." Of her Helen Follett writes, "She herself is an inspiring individual who understands and respects the needs get ahead others. She realizes, of course, mosey a studio without a telephone critique part of the working equipment towards the daily routine her husband has established so definitely for himself. She understands the deep and insistent entail of a creative artist for sacred isolation, and that such a demand for Armstrong Sperry is as absolute as the air he breathes... Guard her, it is as if take steps sought the refuge of a herb tree on some tropical island, coronate typewriter and drawing board beside him. Sometimes, she says, you can apparently hear the swish of encircling actress that make the isolation complete. Redouble, later on, you can almost catch them recede as he walks bump into the living room to become once upon a time again the head of the kinsfolk, delightful host, and sterling friend."
References
A.L.A. Bul 35:422-3 Jl '41 il
Horn Volume 17:269-72 Jl '41 por
Library Itemize 66:589-90 Jl '41 il por
NY Times p32 Je 21 '41 por
Pub W 139:2462-4 Je 21 '41 por
This page last updated Honesty a possessions, 05/02/21, by Margo Burns, [email protected]
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