Margery Williams facts for kids
Margery Williams Bianco (born July 22, 1881, in London, England – died September 4, 1944, in New York City, United States) was a famous English-American author. She wrote many popular books for children. She started her writing career at age nineteen. At forty-one, she became very well-known for her classic book, The Velveteen Rabbit (1922). She also received a special award called the Newbery Honor for her book Winterbound.
Contents
Early Life and Her Love for Stories
Margery Winifred Williams was born in London. She was the second daughter of a respected lawyer and a famous scholar. Her father loved to read and encouraged Margery and her sister to use their imaginations. Margery remembered how her father would bring book characters to life. He showed them a huge world of knowledge and adventure in books. She felt that her desire to read, and then to write, was a gift from her father that stayed with her always.
When Margery was seven, her father suddenly passed away. This sad event changed her life and affected all her future writing. Some people have said her children's books have a sad feeling or talk about loss. But Margery believed that tough times and pain can make our hearts kinder. She wrote that life is always changing, with people leaving and arriving. This process helps us grow and be strong.
In 1890, Margery and her family moved to the United States. A year later, they moved to a farm in rural Pennsylvania. Margery studied at the Convent School in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania until 1898. She really wanted to be a writer. In 1901, at nineteen, she went back to London. She gave her first novel, The Late Returning, to a publisher. It was for adults and came out in 1902. But it didn't sell well, and neither did her next novels, The Price of Youth and The Bar.
Family Life and New Ideas
While visiting her publisher, Margery Williams met Francesco Bianco. He was an Italian man working in London. They got married in 1904. They had a son named Cecco and a daughter named Pamela. Pamela became a famous child artist. She even had an art show in Italy when she was only eleven! Because of Pamela's fame, the Bianco family moved to New York. They lived in the Greenwich Village area for most of their lives. Pamela even drew pictures for some of her mother's books, like The Skin Horse and The Little Wooden Doll. When her children were young, Margery focused on being a mother, so she didn't write as much.
In 1907, the family left England. They first went to Paris, where Francesco worked with rare books. Later, they settled in Turin, Italy. In August 1914, World War I started in Europe. Francesco Bianco joined the Italian Army. While staying home with her children, Margery Bianco found hope and ideas from the poet Walter de la Mare. She called him her "spiritual mentor" because she felt he truly understood how children think.
Returning to America and The Velveteen Rabbit
By the end of 1918, World War I had finished. But there was a lot of hunger and hardship in Europe. In 1921, Margery Bianco and her family moved back to the United States. They settled in Greenwich Village. Margery was inspired by her children's innocent and playful imaginations. She also felt inspired by the magic and mysticism in Walter de la Mare's writings. She decided to start writing again and became famous almost right away.
The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real was Margery Williams Bianco's first book written in America. It is still her most famous work. It has become a classic story. It has been made into plays, radio shows, TV shows, and movies many times.
The story has Margery's usual mix of sweet feelings and a touch of sadness. It's about a little boy who gets a velveteen rabbit in his Christmas stocking. In the nursery, the fancy wind-up toys look down on the rabbit. The rabbit asks the Skin Horse, "What is Real?" The Skin Horse tells him, "When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." The boy starts to love the rabbit very much, and they are always together.
This happy time lasts until the boy gets scarlet fever. The rabbit stays with him, whispering about the games they will play when he gets better. As the boy recovers, his family gets ready to take him to the seaside. The rabbit is excited to go. But the doctor says the rabbit must be thrown out and burned with other toys that might have germs. While the rabbit waits to be burned, he cries a real tear. From this tear, a fairy appears. The fairy tells the rabbit that he was real to the boy because the boy loved him. Now, she will make him truly real. Later, the boy sees a real rabbit in the garden. He thinks it looks like his old rabbit, but he doesn't know it really is the velveteen rabbit he once loved.
A Successful Children's Author
Bianco wrote many other children's books. Her son, Cecco, was the inspiration for one of them. In 1925, she wrote Poor Cecco: The Wonderful Story of a Wonderful Wooden Dog Who Was the Jolliest Toy in the House Until He Went Out to Explore the World. This book is about how toys interact with each other and with people, animals, and other toys outside the toy cupboard.
Margery Bianco also wrote other popular books with more serious themes. For example, The Little Wooden Doll (also from 1925), which her daughter Pamela illustrated. In this story, the doll is treated badly by some children. But then another child shows her love and kindness, which makes her feel whole again.
For the next twenty years of her life, Bianco wrote many books and short stories. Most of them continued her interest in toys coming to life. She explored how objects and animals can show human feelings. There was often a touch of sadness, but readers always felt uplifted in the end. Some of her works from this time include The Apple Tree (1926), The Adventures of Andy (1926), The Skin Horse (1927, also illustrated by Pamela), The Candlestick (1929), Other People's Houses (1930), and The House that Grew Smaller (1931).
Later Years and Legacy
In her last nine years, Bianco wrote both children's books and novels for young adults. These books often featured young people who felt alone or different from others. These characters didn't seem to have the same joy, success, or acceptance as their friends. One of these books was Winterbound. It's about two teenage girls who suddenly have to take care of their younger siblings when their parents go away. This book was a runner-up for the Newbery Medal in 1937. This medal celebrates excellent youth literature. In 1971, when the Newbery Honor was created, Winterbound was given this special recognition.
In 1939, when her home country, Britain, entered World War II, Bianco started to include patriotic themes and references to European history in her books. An example is Franzi and Gizi (1941). Her final book, Forward Commandos! (1944), was an inspiring story about wartime heroes. It even included a Black soldier as one of its characters. At that time, it was very rare for books to recognize the contributions of African-Americans to the war effort. This was noted in the book's reviews.
Margery Williams Bianco did not live to see World War II end. As Forward Commandos! was being sold, she became ill. She passed away at age 63 after three days in the hospital.
Her Books
- 1902 The Late Returning
- 1904 The Price of Youth
- 1906 The Bar
- 1914 The Thing in the Woods (republished in 1924 as by Harper Williams)
- 1922 The Velveteen Rabbit
- 1925 Poor Cecco
- 1925 The Little Wooden Doll
- 1926 The Apple Tree
- 1927 The Skin Horse
- 1927 The Adventures of Andy
- 1929 All About Pets
- 1929 The Candlestick
- 1931 The House That Grew Smaller
- 1932 The Street of Little Shops
- 1933 The Hurdy-Gurdy Man
- 1934 The Good Friends
- 1934 More About Animals
- 1936 Green Grows the Garden
- 1936 Winterbound
- 1939 Other People's Houses
- 1941 Franzi and Gizi
- 1942 Bright Morning
- 1942 Penny and the White Horse
- 1944 Forward, Commandos!
