House Of Dies Drear
THE GLENCOE LITERATURE LIBRARY
Study Guide for The House of
Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton
i
Meet Virginia Hamilton could take a slice of fiction floating around the family and polish it into a saga.
irginia Hamilton has won many awards and honors as a writer of fiction and nonfiction and a reteller of folktales. She is the first author to receive the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award for the same book—her 1974 novel for young people
M.C. Higgins, the Great. The Newbery Medal is awarded annually to the author of the most distinguished children’s book of the year.
Hamilton was born on March 12, 1936, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a town similar to the one she created for Thomas Small and his family in The House of Dies Drear. Like many other writers, she credits her family for inspiring her creativity. Hamilton remembers the family stories that were passed from person to person. She says:
Hamilton grew up quite aware of her
African American heritage. She knew that many of the old houses in her hometown had once been safe havens for enslaved people escaping from the South to the North and to
Canada. Her own ancestors escaped slavery in the 1800s.
Hamilton has been interested in writing since she was a young girl. She notes, “I learned to think and to manage feelings in terms of stories.”
She began writing seriously at Antioch
College in her hometown in Ohio. She attended the school on a scholarship, majored in writing, and composed her first short stories.
Before finishing college, she moved to New
York City, where she continued writing and worked different jobs to support herself.
In 1960 Hamilton married Arnold Adoff, a poet. As newlyweds, the couple traveled to
Spain and to northern Africa. Visiting Africa had been a long-time dream of Hamilton’s, and the country made a strong impression on her.
This trip would eventually influence her first novel, Zeely, which was published in 1967.
After fifteen years in New York City,
Hamilton returned to her home
Study Guide for The House of
Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton
i
Meet Virginia Hamilton could take a slice of fiction floating around the family and polish it into a saga.
irginia Hamilton has won many awards and honors as a writer of fiction and nonfiction and a reteller of folktales. She is the first author to receive the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award for the same book—her 1974 novel for young people
M.C. Higgins, the Great. The Newbery Medal is awarded annually to the author of the most distinguished children’s book of the year.
Hamilton was born on March 12, 1936, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a town similar to the one she created for Thomas Small and his family in The House of Dies Drear. Like many other writers, she credits her family for inspiring her creativity. Hamilton remembers the family stories that were passed from person to person. She says:
Hamilton grew up quite aware of her
African American heritage. She knew that many of the old houses in her hometown had once been safe havens for enslaved people escaping from the South to the North and to
Canada. Her own ancestors escaped slavery in the 1800s.
Hamilton has been interested in writing since she was a young girl. She notes, “I learned to think and to manage feelings in terms of stories.”
She began writing seriously at Antioch
College in her hometown in Ohio. She attended the school on a scholarship, majored in writing, and composed her first short stories.
Before finishing college, she moved to New
York City, where she continued writing and worked different jobs to support herself.
In 1960 Hamilton married Arnold Adoff, a poet. As newlyweds, the couple traveled to
Spain and to northern Africa. Visiting Africa had been a long-time dream of Hamilton’s, and the country made a strong impression on her.
This trip would eventually influence her first novel, Zeely, which was published in 1967.
After fifteen years in New York City,
Hamilton returned to her home