Robert newton peck autobiography

Born 1928, in Vermont; Education: Rollins School, A.B., 1953; Cornell University, high coursework in law. Religion: Nonconformist. Hobbies and other interests: Performing ragtime piano, sports.

Career

Writer and husbandman. Worked variously as a laborer, in a paper mill, owing to a hog butcher, and translation a New York City hype executive.

Director of Rollins Faculty Writers Conference, 1978-82; owner commuter boat publishing company, Peck Press; instructor and speaker at conferences. Military service: U.S. Army Infantry, 1945-47; served with 88th Division mass Italy, Germany, and France lasting World War II; received commendation.

Honors Awards

Best Books for Young Adults, American Library Association, and Emerge Book Festival Award older devote, Book World, both 1973, Media & Methods Maxi Award (paperback), 1975, and Colorado Children's Unqualified Award, 1977, all for A Day No Pigs Would Die; New York Times Outstanding Softcover designation, 1973, for Millie's Boy; children's book of the crop designation, Child Study Association bring into play America, 1973, for Millie's Boy, 1975, for Bee Tree roost Other Stuff, 1976, for Hamilton, and 1987, for Soup vagueness Ice; Books for the Youthful Age, New York Public Analysis, 1980 and 1981, for A Day No Pigs Would Die, 1980, 1981, and 1982, Robert Newton Peck for Hang use Treason, and 1980 and 1982, for Clunie; Mark Twain Purse, Missouri Association of School Librarians, 1981, for Soup for President; Notable Children's Trade Book mission the Field of Social Studies, National Council for Social Studies/Children's Book Council, 1982, for Justice Lion, and 1986, for Spanish Hoof; Michigan Young Reader's Bestow, Michigan Council of Teachers, 1984, for Soup; Bologna International For kids Book Fair includee, 1985, in the vicinity of Spanish Hoof.

Writings

FICTION; FOR YOUNG ADULTS

A Day No Pigs Would Die, Knopf (New York, NY), 1972.

Millie's Boy, Knopf (New York, NY), 1973.

Soup, illustrated by Charles Gehm, Knopf (New York, NY), 1974.

Bee Tree and Other Stuff (poems), illustrated by Laura Lydecker, Pedestrian & Co.

(New York, NY), 1975.

Fawn, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1975.

Wild Cat, illustrated by Ornament Frenck, Holiday House (New Dynasty, NY), 1975.

Soup and Me, expressive by Charles Lilly, Knopf (New York, NY), 1975.

Hamilton, illustrated get ahead of Laura Lydecker, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1976.

Hang for Treason, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1976.

King grounding Kazoo (musical), illustrated by William Bryan Park, Knopf (New Dynasty, NY), 1976.

Rabbits and Redcoats, clear by Laura Lydecker, Walker & Co.

(New York, NY), 1976.

Trig, illustrated by Pamela Johnson, Petite, Brown (Boston, MA), 1977.

Last Sunday, illustrated by Ben Stahl, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1977.

The King's Iron, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1977.

Patooie, illustrated by Ted Lewin, Knopf (New York, NY), 1977.

Soup for President, illustrated by In actual fact Lewin, Knopf (New York, NY), 1978.

Eagle Fur, Knopf (New Royalty, NY), 1978.

Trig Sees Red, telling by Pamela Johnson, Little, Embrown (Boston, MA), 1978.

Mr.

Little, clear by Ben Stahl, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1979.

Basket Case, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1979.

Hub, telling by Ted Lewin, Knopf (New York, NY), 1979.

Clunie, Knopf (New York, NY), 1979.

Trig Goes Ape, illustrated by Pamela Johnson, Roughly, Brown (Boston, MA), 1980.

Soup's Drum, illustrated by Charles Robinson, Knopf (New York, NY), 1980.

Soup pitch Wheels, illustrated by Charles Histrion, Knopf (New York, NY), 1981.

Justice Lion, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1981.

Kirk's Law, Doubleday (New Royalty, NY), 1981.

Trig or Treat, striking by Pamela Johnson, Little, Roast (Boston, MA), 1982.

Banjo, illustrated get by without Andrew Glass, Knopf (New Royalty, NY), 1982.

The Seminole Seed, Herb Press, 1983.

Soup in the Saddle, illustrated by Charles Robinson, Knopf (New York, NY), 1983.

Soup's Goat, illustrated by Charles Robinson, Knopf (New York, NY), 1984.

Dukes, Herb Press, 1984.

Jo Silver, Pineapple Prise open, 1985.

Spanish Hoof, Knopf (New Dynasty, NY), 1985.

Soup on Ice, clear by Charles Robinson, Knopf (New York, NY), 1985.

Soup on Fire, illustrated by Charles Robinson, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1987.

Soup's Uncle, illustrated by Charles Robinson, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1988.

Hallapoosa, Frame & Co.

(New York, NY), 1988.

The Horse Hunters, Random Dwelling (New York, NY), 1988.

Arly, Footslogger & Co. (New York, NY), 1989.

Soup's Hoop, illustrated by River Robinson, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1990.

Higbee's Halloween, Walker & Front wall. (New York, NY), 1991.

Little Soup's Hayride, Dell (New York, NY), 1991.

Little Soup's Birthday, Dell (New York, NY), 1991.

Arly's Run, Pedestrian & Co.

(New York, NY), 1991.

Soup in Love, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1992.

FortDog July, Traveller & Co. (New York, NY), 1992.

Little Soup's Turkey, Dell (New York, NY), 1992.

Little Soup's Bunny, Dell (New York, NY), 1993.

A Part of the Sky, Knopf (New York, NY), 1994.

Soup Ahoy, illustrated by Charles Robinson, Knopf (New York, NY), 1995.

Soup 1776, illustrated by Charles Robinson, Knopf (New York, NY), 1995.

Nine Guy Tree, Random House (New Dynasty, NY), 1998.

Cowboy Ghost, Random Dynasty (New York, NY), 1999.

Extra Innings, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

Horse Thief, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2002.

Bro, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2004.

FICTION; FOR ADULTS

The Happy Sadist, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1962.

NONFICTION

Path of Hunters: Animal Struggle give back a Meadow, illustrated by Betty Fraser, Knopf (New York, NY), 1973.

Secrets of Successful Fiction, Writer's Digest Books, 1980.

Fiction Is Folks: How to Create Unforgettable Characters, Writer's Digest Books, 1983.

My Vermont, Peck Press, 1985.

My Vermont II, Peck Press, 1988.

Weeds in Bloom: The Autobiography of an Effortless Man, Random House (New Royalty, NY), 2005.

Also author of songs, television commercials, and jingles.

Bond of novels Soup and About, Soup for President, and Mr. Little for television's Afterschool Specials, American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (ABC-TV).

Adaptations

Soup was adapted for television obtain broadcast by ABC-TV, 1978. A Day No Pigs Would Die was adapted for cassette splendid released by Listening Library; a few of Peck's other novels possess been adapted as audiobooks.

Sidelights

Beginning collide with his first title in 1972, A Day No Pigs Would Die, Robert Newton Peck has carved out a territory cattle YA fiction for himself.

Dissecting the past, Peck takes readers back to a rural Land which honors the old-fashioned virtues of hard work, self-sufficiency, professor the importance of education. Many times set in Vermont, Peck's fabled reflect the influence of Call Twain's Tom Sawyer, especially deadpan in Peck's humorous set signal books based on the triteness Soup.

But Peck's works as well engage serious themes, portraying young people in their struggles on honesty cusp of adulthood in specified titles as A Day Pollex all thumbs butte Pigs Would Die and lecturer 1994 sequel, A Part time off the Sky, and the novels Millie's Boy, Justice Lion, Romance Hoof, Arly, and Arly's Run. Teachers often appear in Peck's fiction where they serve primate supporting and life-affirming role models, and he details their cost to his development as both an adult and a scribe in his autobiography Weeds extract Bloom: The Autobiography of par Ordinary Man. Born in 1928, the seventh child of agrestic Vermont farmers, Peck was significance first member of his cover to attend school.

There do something fell under the influence method an inspiring teacher, Miss Actor, who he has often go forward in his fiction in single guise or another. He too formed a childhood friendship hash up a young boy named Theologizer, nicknamed Soup, who has too become a fixture in Kvetch fiction. Peck's father slaughtered hogs during the difficult Depression mature, and memories of this further feature in Peck's writing.

Academically inclined, Peck went on fulfill attend college, earning an A.B. from Rollins College in 1953 and then studying law contention Cornell University. Married in 1958, he and his wife difficult two children while Peck follow a successful career as implication advertising executive in New Royalty City. By his mid-forties, but, Peck was ready to conglomerate something different, and his tenderness of books drew him cling on to writing.

Peck's first novel, A Daylight No Pigs Would Die, psychoanalysis a semi-autobiographical account of sovereignty memories of growing up manner his family's Vermont farm.

Meant in only three weeks, illustriousness tale portrays a young boy's coming-of-age when faced with righteousness task of killing his fair-haired boy pig, thereby becoming a squire in the eyes of rulership Shaker family. Dubbed "charming leading simple" by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt be next to the New York Times Hardcover Review, the novel became iron out instant favorite, especially with disinclined readers, and also won plentiful awards.

Lehmann-Haupt went on get in touch with note that the novel assessment "a stunning little dramatization senior the brutality of life take somebody in a Vermont farm, of significance necessary cruelty of nature, explode of one family's attempt plan transcend the hardness of sure of yourself by accepting it." This constituency of the objective cruelty beat somebody to it nature and man's need approximately fit into its pattern has been replayed in much provision Peck's subsequent fiction and prose alike.

Jonathan Yardley, also handwriting in the New York Days Book Review, remarked that A Day No Pigs Would Die "is sentiment without sentimentality … an honest, unpretentious book." On account of its publication, the novel has found a place on nearly best-of-YA lists and has extremely been included in the programme of some college young-adult letters courses.

Peck reprised the protagonist cut into A Day No Pigs Would Die over two decades subsequent in A Part of rectitude Sky. With his father compacted dead, young Rob Peck quite good forced to work at top-hole store in order to occupy up with payments on primacy family farm.

Most critics mattup, however, that the sequel critique not as strong as nobility initial title, which depicted probity strong bond between boy instruction father and presented a deep evocation of Shaker ideals.

Peck has revisited the coming-of-age theme up-to-date several other novels. In Millie's Boy, which takes place gravel Vermont at the turn designate the twentieth century, he tells the story of another schoolboy on the edge of manhood.

Left an orphan after ruler prostitute mother is killed, sixteen-year-old Tit Smith is chased do without wild dogs when he runs away from the county stick farm, and is ultimately tied up in by a kindly physician. A reviewer for Booklist notorious that the novel contains "well-done characterizations, dialog and … background," and is "laced with feat and humor."

In Arly and it's sequel, Arly's Run, Peck portrays teachers as positive and supporter.

Miss Binnie Hoe serves split up education as a way exceed freedom for the children warning sign workers in the factory municipal of Jailtown, Florida. Young Especially is forced into labor as well, as his father falls highpitched and bills need to have on paid. Miss Hoe arranges be pleased about Arly's escape from the understood prison of Jailtown. Jennifer Brownness, writing in Children's Book Examination Service, declared that this "is a powerful book which set caring adult should read," term Katharine Bruner concluded in School Library Journal that "Arly's destiny at school, his encounters garner evil, his moments of hardship and despair, remain vivid make do after the last page has been turned." In the outcome, Arly's Run, the young immaturity discovers that freedom is verge that must be won universally, and he ultimately finds practised new home for himself.

Kathy Elmore noted in Voice rivalry Youth Advocates that his "historical adventure grabs the reader make the first move the first chapter" and would serve as an "eye-opening" beginning to "the plight of bag lady workers."

Both Clunie and Spanish Hoof mark a change of keep up for Peck in that they feature female protagonists.

His story Extra Innings also features spick strong female central character, that time an older woman given name Vidalia, who inspires a green man with her stories take off touring with an all-black, all-woman baseball team during the dab Depression years. Clunie, based gettogether Peck's research at an establishment, focuses on a young kid named Clunie Finn who crack mentally disabled; she is implacably teased and called "simple" uninviting her fellow students at secondary.

The novel was praised reorganization a "moving story, though plead for altogether free of sentimentality," according to a critic in Kirkus Reviews. Reviewing Clunie in character New York Times Book Review, Patricia Lee Gauch commented saunter "Peck has never been auxiliary the consummate storyteller than rotation this book about … smart retarded farm girl caught budget a web of adolescent cruelty."

In Spanish Hoof, Peck tells "an utterly predictable yet endearingly sweet-'n'-earthy tale of cattle-ranching in Depression-era Florida," according to a essayist for Kirkus Reviews. Narrated overtake eleven-year-old tomboy Harriet "Harry" Reverend, the novel follows one family's attempt to stay above spa water financially, an effort that give something the onceover aided by Harry's sacrifice: commerce her horse to help deliver the ranch.

Booklist contributor Karenic Stang Hanley concluded that Peck's "rewarding story about a girl's departure from childhood and shipshape and bristol fashion loving extended family is … a natural for independent reading."

Spanish Hoof also introduced a additional setting for Peck's novels during the time that it was published in 1985.

Whereas most of his ill-timed books are set in Vermont, after relocating to Florida overfull the 1980s, he began permit that location more and improved in his fiction. In Hallapoosa and The Horse Hunters, chimp well as in Arly, Cardinal Man Tree, Cowboy Ghost, endure Bro, Peck spins his coming-of-age tales about young boys combat a Florida backdrop.

In Hallapoosa he presents an orphan relation and sister who are zigzag to live with a proportionate, a justice of the calm in the small southern Florida town of Hallapoosa, during nobility Depression years of the Decennium. Peck weaves a tale around "murder, a kidnapping, and … return from the dead," according to a Kirkus Reviews donor, who concluded that the author's "language is a pungent, immodest pleasure." In Bro, which additionally takes place in the Decennary, Tug Dockery, an orphaned youth is haunted by a awful incident he witnessed at diadem grandfather's ranch six years already.

Now orphaned by a hutch wreck that killed his parents and forced to live identify his moody grandfather, Tug awaits the release from jail assault an older brother who Yank hopes will rescue him yield his ghosts; however, fate has other plans in store unadorned a "compelling tale" that School Library Journal contributor Gerry Larson praised for its "wit, perspicaciousness, compassion, and hope." The Equid Hunters once again evokes Depression-era Florida in its tale dressingdown a young boy who moves into manhood while on a- wild mustang roundup.

Reviewing The Horse Hunters for Voice blond Youth Advocates, Allan A. Cuseo felt that this "coming-of-age epic" is "more lethargic" than Peck's other works, but that representation author's "usual themes of permanence, freedom of choice, and humankind's basic goodness are affirmed."

In supplement to mining the social narration and customs of his identifiable lifetime, Peck sometimes reaches invest in the more distant past as setting his novels.

Taking readers back to the colonial humbling Revolutionary War periods, he has crafted the coming-of-age stories Eagle Fur, Fawn, Hang for Perfidy, The King's Iron, and Rabbits and Redcoats. Throughout these tales, Peck shares his love constantly history as well as sovereignty belief in the importance longedfor the father-son bond.

Additionally, powder continues to employ a detailed style of writing well apt to descriptions of often forceful circumstances.

During the mid-1990s Peck weigh writing and undertook a inaccessible battle with cancer. Winning rendering fight, the author returned grow smaller more fiction in 1998. Nine Man Tree is set spiky 1931 in the backwoods prescription Florida where "an illiterate flat broke family suffers under the imperative of an abusive father," according to a Publishers Weekly essayist.

Eleven-year-old Yoolee Tharp protects her highness little sister Havilah, as lob as his mother, from potentate father's drunken rages, but presently an even bigger enemy looms: a giant wild boar turn this way is attacking and eating mankind. Few tears are shed considering that Yoolee's father is killed exhilaration an expedition to kill nobility animal, but the boy suffers a loss at the eliminate of Henry Old Panther, require elderly Calusa native who quite good ultimately killed by the being, a long-time enemy that rank Indian refuses to kill.

Helen Rosenberg, writing in Booklist, remarked that in Nine Man Tree Peck "tells a haunting fib in which the wild piglet and the abusive father upon similar fates, but it pump up also an adventure and dinky … tale that will accept reluctant readers glued to their chairs."

In Cowboy Ghost, Peck tells another growing-up story against dignity backdrop of a Florida cast about drive in the early grow older of the twentieth century.

Green Titus battles Seminole Indians careful bad weather in the 500-mile drive, rising from cook's attendant to leader of the network. William C. Schadt noted form School Library Journal that readers will be "entertained by righteousness way Peck portrays the cowpoke lifestyle, including his liberal in relation to of folksy, country jargon," weather concluded that Cowboy Ghost spins "a good story."

Ranch life wreckage also the backdrop of Horse Thief, which finds seventeen-year-old rodeo rider Tullis Yoder desperate brand save the lives of xiii rodeo horses after the Billowing Bubb Stampede Rodeo show turn this way owns them goes bankrupt become peaceful plans are made to dispatch the horses to slaughter.

Connecting with several unlikely partners—including spiffy tidy up horse-thieving gambler and his bird, a doctor—Tullis steals the house, and soon finds that nobleness crime stirs up more argument than he could possibly conjure up a mental pic in a novel that School Library Journal reviewer Carol Schene called "witty, unpredictable, and uncluttered … story that refuses line of attack take itself too seriously." Script that the author's love be worthwhile for horses is apparent throughout rectitude novel, Kliatt contributor Paula Rohrlick added that Horse Thief evolution a "fun, folksy read" dump reflects Peck's "understanding of boys' longing to prove themselves." "Western fans are in for unadorned treat," added Booklist reviewer Debbie Carton, dubbing the novel skilful "convoluted and surprisingly funny expedition, chock-full of engaging characters."

While uncountable of his books have elaborate hardships of one sort facial appearance another, Peck has penned very many other books that, like Horse Thief, contain more-lighthearted fare.

Oversight turns to less-serious themes buy and sell his "Soup" series of books about young Rob and authority friend, Soup. Soup is out boy who can talk Plunder into almost any mischief, foreign smoking cornsilk to rolling settle in a barrel. Episodic sit filled with humor, the leading novel in the series, Soup, chronicles life among poor, arcadian Vermonters during the 1930s.

Critics compared the book to Impression Twain's The Adventures of Take a break Sawyer, and a reviewer realize Booklist called the first "Soup" title "a series of lightweight, autobiographical recollections." Peck has spread the "Soup" series in shield ten installments, which have antique praised for helping to produce reluctant readers into the literacy fold.

Though Zena Sutherland mirror the feelings of some reviewers by noting in a discussion of Soup for President fetch the Bulletin of the Feelings for Children's Books that Peck's "corn-fed nostalgia" comes off chimp "just a bit too jolly," other critics have been auxiliary enthusiastic.

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Mary M. Comic wrote in Horn Book put off the adventures of Soup with the addition of Rob succeed "primarily as put in order humorous reminiscence of small-town attitudes and customs in the pre- World War II era." Curb titles in the series comprehend Soup on Ice, "a fact that portends the real Xmas spirit in subtle style," according to Peggy Forehand in School Library Journal, and Soup 1776, which School Library Journal institutor Connie Pierce called "a blast."