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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsZilpha Keatley Snyder dies at 87; wrote fantastical children's books
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, the author of dozens of children's and young-adult novels centered on lonely kids with rich but chilling fantasy lives, has died. She was 87.
Snyder, who lived in a Marin County retirement community, died Oct. 7 in San Francisco of a stroke, according to her publisher, Simon & Schuster.
With more than 40 books to her credit, Snyder won the Newbery Honor one of the top awards in children's literature three times. Her winning novels were "The Headless Cupid," "The Witches of Worm" and "The Egypt Game" a 1967 story involving preteens who secretly re-create ancient Egyptian rituals at a makeshift shrine as a child killer lurks in the neighborhood.
For Snyder, it was, like many of her books, drawn from bits and pieces of her own life. As a girl in rural Ventura County, she was entranced with Egypt and, for a time, walked to school each morning as an incarnation of the elegant and mysterious queen Nefertiti.
Conjuring images of gargoyles, witches, sinister cats and harpies whose faces "were those of lovely young maidens except for their wild cruel eyes and the blood that continually smeared their mouths and dripped from their small, sharp teeth," Snyder frequently was asked where she got her ideas.
more
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-zilpha-keatley-snyder-20141019-story.html
uppityperson
(115,678 posts)Hekate
(90,773 posts)...as a youngster. Now you've sent me off to read the whole obit, and look up her books!
Thanks for this fascinating post.
swimboy
(7,284 posts)Many of her other books have an element of the sinister, spooky or creepy.
MerryBlooms
(11,771 posts)RIP Zilpha Keatley Snyder
deafskeptic
(463 posts)I loved the Witches of Worm, Egyptian Game and Black and Blue Magic. I think B&B Magic was the first book by her that I read.
I will miss her.
narnian60
(3,510 posts)Eerie.
distantearlywarning
(4,475 posts)One of my favorites as a kid. Also the Green Sky Trilogy.
murielm99
(30,755 posts)So did my girls.
That page also had a link to an obit for Walter Dean Myers. He was another great author for YA books.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)I don't know how I got onto it...since I was in 9th grade when it was published, but it spoke to me: words of comfort and patience and persistence towards one's goals.
I probably still have a copy in the house. I will have to go look for it.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)A historic fiction story of orphans and orphanages in the Wild West. Of course it has horses so my kids loved it. Me too...
RIP Ms Snyder! You have left a lovely legacy and are much beloved.