Esther Glen

Alice Esther Glen (also: Esther Glen, born December 26, 1881 in Christchurch, † February 9, 1940 ibid ) was a New Zealand author and journalist. She was the first significant New Zealand children's book author.

Life

Esther Glen grew up as the third ( according to other sources: second) of twelve children of Robert and Alice Parker Glen Helen White in Linwood on. At the age of 11, she won a story contest with a story that she had sent for the magazine Little Folks.

After school, she went to Australia to work in a kindergarten, her sister Helen headed. There she met the Australian literature for children to know, especially the title Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner from 1894, which was very successful there. Until that time, there were no New Zealand children's books. In order to create a comparable work that addresses the experiences of New Zealand children, she wrote Six Little New Zealanders first appeared in 1917. The story is about three bachelors who operate a sheep far out in the country in Canterbury and are not used to children. You get about summer visits from their six nephews and nieces from Auckland, for which again the country life is something new, which leads to a series of comic complications. The work is published in six editions until 1983. Critics praised the serene style of writing and the realistic portrayal of the characters. In 1926, the sequel Uncles three at kamahi appeared.

Since 1922 Esther Glen supervised the children's page in the newspaper Christchurch Sun, first as a freelance journalist, from 1925, where he worked as an editor and reporter, and also looked after the women's side. Since that time she was nicknamed Lady Gay, and she called on children to send in their own stories, poems and pictures to the newspaper. From 1935 she worked for the Christchurch Press. She also wrote some of the first radio plays for children.

Esther Glen also had a social cause. She founded clubs where children could meet and make friends to outgrow the isolation of country life. During the Great Depression, knitted, sewed and cooked the children there for the poor. They also advocated that single unemployed women received appropriate accommodation. They supported the establishment of women's and children's homes.

Esther Glen was not married, and they had no children.

Esther Glen Award

To Esther Glens memory of Esther Glen Award was launched annually by the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa ( Lianza ) will be awarded to a New Zealand children's book author for the most excellent contribution to children 's literature since 1945 (with exceptions) ( ... for the most distinguished contribution to New Zealand literature for junior fiction ).

It is the oldest and most prestigious New Zealand literary prize will be awarded today.

Works

• Six little New Zealanders. 1917th German first translation by Tatjana Kroell; edited by Mona Petri: The six of us from New Zealand. Illustrated by Wendy Rutz. Susanna Rieder Verlag. Munich. 2012 ISBN. 978-3-941172-86-9.
• Twinkles on the mountain. , 1920.
• Robin of Maori land. In 1929.