A Biography of Lois Lenski

Lois Lenski was born in Springfield, Ohio, on October 14, 1893. The fourth of five children of a Lutheran minister and a schoolteacher, she was raised in the rural town of Anna, Ohio, west of Springfield, where her father was the pastor. Many of the children’s books she wrote and illustrated take place in small, closely knit communities all over the country that are similar to Lenski’s hometown.

After graduating from high school in 1911, Lenski moved with her family to Columbus, where her father joined the faculty at Capital University. Because Capital did not yet allow women to enroll, she attended college at Ohio State University. Lenski took courses in education, planning to become a teacher like her mother, but also studied art, and was especially interested in drawing. In 1915, with a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate, she decided to pursue a career in art, and moved to New York City to take classes at the Art Students League of New York.

In an illustration class at the League, Lenski met a muralist named Arthur Covey. She assisted him in painting several murals, and also supported herself by taking on parttime jobs drawing fashion advertisements and lettering greeting cards. In October 1920, she left New York to continue her studies in Italy and London, where the publisher John Lane hired her to illustrate children’s books. When she returned to New York in 1921, she married Covey and became stepmother to his two children, Margaret and Laird.

Early in her career, Lenski dedicated herself to book illustration. When a publisher suggested that she try writing her own stories, she drew upon the happy memories of her childhood. Her first authored book, Skipping Village (1927), is set in a town that closely resembles Anna at the start of the twentieth century. A Little Girl of 1900 (1928) soon followed, also clearly based on Lenski’s early life in rural Ohio.

In 1929, Lenski’s son, Stephen, was born, and the family moved to a farmhouse called Greenacres in Harwinton, Connecticut, which they would call home for the next three decades. Lenski continued to illustrate other authors’ books, including the original version of The Little Engine That Could (1930) by Watty Piper, and the popular Betsy-Tacy series (1940–55) by Maud Hart Lovelace. Lenski also wrote the Mr. Small series (1934–62), ten books based on Stephen’s antics as a toddler.

The house at Greenacres had been built in 1790 and it became another source of inspiration, as Lenski liked to imagine the everyday lives of the people who had previously lived in her home. In Phebe Fairchild, Her Book (1936), for instance, a young girl is sent to live with her father’s family on their farm in northwestern Connecticut in 1830‚ when Greenacres would have been forty years old. For its rich and detailed depiction of family life in rural New England, the book was awarded the Newbery Honor.

Other historical novels followed—including A-Going to the Westward (1937), set in central Ohio; Bound Girl of Cobble Hill (1938); Ocean-Born Mary (1939); Blueberry Corners (1940); and Puritan Adventure (1944)—all set in New England; and Indian Captive (1941), a carefully researched retelling of the true story of Mary Jemison, a Pennsylvania girl captured by a raiding Native American tribe, for which Lenski won a second Newbery Honor.

By 1941, Lenski’s stepdaughter, Margaret, had married and started her own family, and Margaret’s son, David, spent a great deal of time with his grandparents at the farm. Lenski’s Davy series of seven picture books (1941–61) was largely based on David’s visits to Connecticut as a child.

During this period, Lenski experienced bouts of illness, brought on by the harsh Connecticut winters. The family began to spend winters in Florida, where she “saw the real America for the first time,” as she wrote in her autobiography. Noting how few books described the daily life of children in different parts of the country, she began writing the Regional America series, starting with Bayou Suzette (1943). The seventeen books in this series depict children’s lives in every region of the United States, from New England to the Pacific Northwest, in rural and urban settings. Lenski traveled to each region that she would later feature in her books, spending three to six weeks in each locale. She collected stories from children and adults in each area, documenting their dialect, learning about their way of life, and otherwise getting to know the people that would become the characters in her books. The second book in the series, Strawberry Girl, won the Newbery Medal in 1946. The Roundabout America series (1952–66), intended for younger readers, was based on the same theme of daily life all over the country. Lenski was unparalleled in the diversity of American lifestyles that she documented; the combination of research, interviews, and drawings that she utilized; and the empathy and honesty that she employed in recording people’s lives.

Other popular series for children followed, including four books about the seasons—Spring Is Here (1945), Now It’s Fall (1948), I Like Winter (1950), and On a Summer Day (1953)—and the seven Debbie books (1967–71), based on Lenski’s experiences with her granddaughter. Lenski also published several volumes of songs and poetry, mostly for children.

In early 1960, Lenski’s husband died, and she soon sold the farm in Connecticut to live in Florida year round. There she wrote her autobiography, Journey Into Childhood (1972). Lenski died on September 11, 1974, at her home in Florida. The Lois Lenski Covey Foundation, which she established to promote literacy and reading among at-risk children, continues her mission by providing grants to school and public libraries each year.

Lenski in 1897, at age four, when she lived in Springfield, Ohio. She was born there on October 14, 1893.

Lenski photographed at age seven or eight, when the family lived in Anna, Ohio. The family lived in Anna for twelve years. It was there that Lenski developed her love of country life and began drawing and painting.

Lenski with her family in Anna, Ohio. From left to right: sister Esther; brothers, Oscar and Gerhard; father, Richard; Lois; mother, Marietta; and in front, sister Mariam.

Lenski’s high school graduation photo, taken in 1911. Her English teacher predicted that some day she would “do some form of creative work.”

Lenski in her studio in Pelham Manor, New York, around 1925. She lived there with her husband, Arthur; stepchildren, Margaret and Laird; and later, her son, Stephen.

Lenski with Stephen, age three, in 1932.

Lenski with Stephen and Arthur in 1946, just after she had won the Newbery Award for Strawberry Girl. With them is their pet goat, Missy.

Eventually, Lenski’s declining health led her to move to a warmer climate. In this 1960s photo, she is in her studio in Tarpon Springs, Florida.