Cynthia Voigt
I first read one of Cynthia Voigt's books back in 1988. It was
Homecoming, the first book of the Tillerman stories, which was nominated for several international awards and
made into a film(Wikipedia) I was reading it aloud to my two children. Alex was eleven and Abby was seven, and
all three of us loved the book. Voigt's character's are so real and so fully developed that one can't help but become
involved and really care about them. So, when we finished that first book we went on to read Dicey's Song which is
the sequel and which won the impressive Newberry Medal for best novel in 1983.
Dicey Tillerman is the central character in both of these books, but
her brothers James and Sammie and her sister, Maybeth, are all major players. As Homecoming opens the four children
are sitting in a car in a parking lot at a mall waiting for their mom to come out. As hours pass and she does not return
they discuss possibilities and Dicey mentally begins making plans. She knows that her mother has been strange lately
and thinks it possible that she may have become confused and now does not know where she is or where they are. They sleep
in the car that night and when their mother has still not returned the next morning and a security guard begins to be interested
in them, Dicey has them collect a few belongings in a paper bag and quietly slip away. They are going to walk from Providence,
Rhode Island to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Luckily it is summertime because they are going to walk and camp and fish for
food. They are going to stay near the shore the whole way and they need to blend in with summer kids at the shore.
Dicey's main goal is to keep the four of them together which she is very much afraid will not happen if they have to deal
with any authorities. So, they are headed to the home of her mother's cousin, whom they have never met, because that is where
they were headed when they stopped at the mall and is the one place their mother would eventually look for them and it
is the only relative Dicey knows of at this point.
The adventure of being four kids on their own, making all their own
decisions, is always a popular storyline and in this case the adventures are very realistic. The struggles, the
dangers, the people they meet and how they interact with them are all plausible and provide situations that develop and display
the character of each child. Each child has his or her own specific difficulties with this situation. Sammie is
constantly asking Dicey about mom and expecting to be reunited with mom very soon. Dicey and James are there for their younger
siblings, trying to comfort and help them. Dicey and James are a good team and among the four of them actually they
have quite a lot of useful skills.
Cynthia Voigt said that her stories often start with questions which
she lets stew perhaps for a year and that this story began with her seeing some children in a car and wondering what would
happen if no one came back for them (Elmegreen). Voight also said that Dicey is the child she would have liked to be
and that Gram [Tillerman] is the lady she would like to become. Actually, I think Voigt sounds just like Gram when she
says that she enjoys everything she does, perhaps because when she doesn't enjoy something she doesn't do it (Elmegreen).
Cynthia Voight was born Cynthia Irving to Elise Keeney and Frederick
C. Irving, on February 25, 1942. She was the second of four children. She said of herself,
in an interview for Scholastic, Inc., that she like to read Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew and the Black Stallion books. I
immediately identified because so did I. She also said that The Secret Garden was the first book that she found for
herself and she treasured it. By the time she started high school she knew that she wanted to write books. She graduated
from Smith College and though she said she never wanted to be a teacher she went on to earn a teaching license through the
Christian Brothers. She married in 1964 and moved to Santa Fe and began to teach. From the first day she loved it!
And that first year she read mountains of children's literature to become familiar with books for her students. It was
then that she realized that "kids novels had the shape of real books, and [she] began to get ideas for young adult novels
and juvenile books" (Scholastic).
Cynthia Voigt was divorced from her first husband in 1972. In
1974, she married Walter Voigt, a teacher of Greek and Latin, at the Key School, where she also was teaching. She had been
pursuing a regime of writing for an hour everyday. When she became pregnang she went to teaching part time and spending more
time writing. She got the idea for Building Blocks watching her toddler son play with his cardboard blocks and wondering,
what if... But she put aside that book for a time when she began Homecoming which became her first published book.
In addition to the saga of the Tillerman's Cynthia Voigt has
written four books that take place in a made up kingdom. It is not a magical kingdom, but rather a place much like an
area of Europe during the medieval times. There are the common peasants and the nobles who rule them from afar,who
are rarely seen and have much power. It is forbidden for the People, the peasants, to read or see maps and their roles
are very much pre-ordained and rigid.The main characters in these books usually have some argument with their own preset choice
of roles. The setting allows for the exploration of ethics, power, character, and relationships from a new
vantage point. Jackaroo is an eminently satisfying adventure and a romance.
I thought I had read everything Voigt wrote, but my research for this
has author study has proved different. She actually has thirty published books. I am so glad to hear it. In addition
to the seven books of the Tillermans, there are four that take place in the 'kingdom', and a series about Bad girls I haven't
read at all, but must. There is also, of course, Building Blocks, in which a boy falls asleep among his blocks
and wakes in another time and gets to know his own father as a boy his own age. There is Izzy, Willy Nilly, about
a ninth grade high school girl who goes on her first date with an older boy and is in a horrible car accident that requires
the amputation of one leg. How she comes to terms with that and goes on finally to have a full and happy high school
life is a powerful story. I had not previously heard of When She Hollers in which, Tish, an adopted teenaged girl
decides to stand up and defend herself against the father who is sexually abusing her.
Voigt's books have won a number of awards. The Callendar Papers
won the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1984. A Solitary Blue was a Newberry Honor Book in 1984 and a Phoenix Award Honor
Book in 2003. In 1995, Cynthia Voigt received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement.
This is awarded to an author whose books are popular with teenagers. The titles honored must be at least five years
old. The committee cited her books: Homecoming, Dicey’s Song, A Solitary Blue, Building
Blocks, The Runner, Jackaroo, and Izzy, Willy Nilly. On that ocasion she said, “It’s
a razzle-dazzle kind of fun to have a story come out and do well. That’s wonderful. But it’s only
when you’re up there working when it’s actually real: that’s what the whole thing is rooted in, and that’s
the only thing that actually counts.”
Each of Cynthia Voigt's books has been compelling for me. Her
characters stay with me; they feel like people I have known. I am glad to know that there are more books of hers that
I have not read. I invite everyone to read something by Voigt. Her books include mystery, fantasy, and very
real everyday life. Her characters deal with racism, child abuse, abandonment, disability, and sibling, friend,
romantic, and familial relationships. Somewhere among her books is something for everyone. She has even just published
a story of two dogs, Angus and Sadie, sister and brother border collie pups, growing up together on a farm in Maine. Give
her books a read; you will like them.
