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Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature:

Robin Mckinley

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(1952–), American author of fairy- tale retellings, short stories, picture books, and fantasy novels. McKinley's childhood was peripatetic owing to her father's military career. She studied English literature at Bowdoin College and then worked as an editor, researcher, and teacher. In 1992 she married Peter Dickinson, a renowned British fantasy author, and moved to England. McKinley is an accomplished reteller of classic stories, which she vividly reshapes for contemporary audiences. Her first novel, the highly regarded Beauty: Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978), subtly reworks the traditionally patriarchal significance of this fairy tale by making its heroine a self-conscious and seemingly plain young woman. The novel is as much about Beauty's self-awakening as it is about her discovery of the Beast's compassionate nature. A feminist discourse is always present in McKinley's writing, particularly in relation to her strong-willed female protagonists. Deerskin (1993), a version of the Perrault fairy tale “Donkeyskin,” transforms the tale of a young woman raped by her father into a journey of feminine empowerment. In Rose Daughter (1997), McKinley revisits the story of Beauty and the Beast but importantly changes the ending: the story concludes by allowing Beauty to choose her own fate.

McKinley has also published a number of acclaimed fantasy novels. Like her fairy tales, these fantasies are set in carefully detailed worlds and feature assertive female heroines. The Blue Sword (1982), a Newbery Honor book, is a sword-and-sorcery fantasy about the spirited Harry, a girl who embodies many of the heroic qualities conventionally associated with masculinity. The Hero and the Crown (1984), which won the Newbery Medal, is a prequel to The Blue Sword. It is also a female coming-of-age story, exploring the future queen's progression from outcast to heroic dragon fighter. In 2003 McKinley published her first adult novel, Sunshine, an introspective, ruminative vampire thriller.

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Robin McKinley

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Robin McKinley
Born Jennifer Carolyn Robin McKinley
(1952-11-16) 16 November 1952 (age 59)
Warren, Ohio, USA
Nationality American
Genres Fantasy
Subjects Bildungsroman
Notable work(s) The Hero and the Crown, Deerskin, Sunshine, Beauty
Spouse(s) Peter Dickinson
www.robinmckinley.com

Robin McKinley (born November 16, 1952 as Jennifer Carolyn Robin McKinley) is a distinguished author of fantasy and children's books who has written sixteen books to date. Her latest book Pegasus was published in 2010. She has announced the planned publication of a new novel, coming in 2013,[1] as well as two additional books, to be released at a later date, which will continue the story begun in Pegasus.

Contents

Biography

Robin McKinley was born as Jennifer Carolyn Robin McKinley on 16 November 1952 in Warren, Ohio. Her father William McKinley was an officer in the United States Navy and her mother Jeanne Turrell McKinley was a teacher. As a result of her father's changing naval posts, McKinley grew up all over the world including in California, New York, Japan, and Maine. She was educated at Gould Academy, a preparatory school in Bethel, Maine. McKinley went on to attend college, first at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1970-1972. She finished her college education at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and graduated summa cum laude in 1975.

Robin McKinley currently lives in Hampshire, England with her husband, author Peter Dickinson. They have two dogs nicknamed Chaos and Darkness. They have no children though Peter Dickinson has children from a previous relationship. Her "obsessions" include learning how to play the piano, horseback riding, gardening, cooking, and bell ringing.[2]

Career

After graduating from college, she remained in Maine for several years working as a research assistant and later in a bookstore. During this time, she completed her first book Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast which was accepted for publication by the first publisher it was sent to and upon publication, it immediately pushed McKinley to prominence. The book was named an American Library Association Notable Children's Book and a ALA Best Book for Young Adults.[3]

Writing

Robin McKinley has written a variety of novels, mostly in the fantasy genre. Some of her novels are her own personal renditions of classic fairy tales with a “feminist twist.”[4] These renditions of classic fairy tales usually feature a strong female protagonist who does not sit around waiting to be rescued; instead the heroine takes an active role in determining the course of her own life. Besides adapting classic fairy tales, McKinley has also produced her own renditions of other popular tales such as Robin Hood in her novel The Outlaws of Sherwood. McKinley has also written many standalone novels including her two Damar novels, The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown. She has also written reader favorites Sunshine and Dragonhaven.

The heroines in McKinley's books reflect certain qualities that she saw in herself as a young woman: clumsiness, plainness, bookishness, and disinterest in the usual social games that involve flirting and dating (she says, "I didn't discover boys because they didn't discover me, and because their standards of discovery seemed to me too odd to be aspired to. They were the ones who got to have adventures, while we got to -- well, not have adventures."[5])

She writes about strong heroines because she feels very strongly about the potential for girls to be "doing things" and she feels that the selection of fantasy literature featuring girls is scarce and unsatisfactory. According to biographer Marilyn H. Karrenbrock, "McKinley's females do not simper; they do not betray their own nature to win a man's approval. But neither do they take love lightly or put their own desires before anything else. In McKinley's books, the romance, like the adventure, is based upon ideals of faithfulness, duty, and honor."[6]

As far as her writing goes, McKinley describes herself as a "scribe" and "Damar's historian", because the stories "happen to her" and she is only responsible for writing them down. The stories of Damar have been occurring to her since before she wrote Beauty, and The Blue Sword was intended to be the first of a series about this land.[7] Her first two Damar books, The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, are both set there, as are her contribution to the Imaginary Lands anthology and the stories in A Knot in the Grain. She has also written several retellings of fairy tales; Beauty and Rose Daughter are both versions of Beauty and the Beast, Spindle's End is the story of Sleeping Beauty, and Deerskin and two of the stories in The Door in the Hedge are based on other folk-tales.

Awards

  • 1983 Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword.
  • 1985 Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown.
  • 1986 World Fantasy Award for Anthology/Collection for Imaginary Lands.[8]
  • 1998 Phoenix Award Honor Book for Beauty.[9]
  • 2004 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for Sunshine.[10]

Bibliography

Novels

Collections/Anthologies

  • Imaginary Lands (1986)
  • A Knot in the Grain (1994)
  • Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits (2009)
  • Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits (2009)

Children’s Picture Books

  • Rowan (1992)
  • My Father Is in the Navy (1992)
  • The Stone Fey (1998)

Selected Scholarly Work on Robin McKinley's Works

In no particular order

  • Hearne, Betsy. "Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale: 1950-1985." Lion and the Unicorn 12.2 (Dec. 1988): 74-111. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 May 2011.
  • ltmann, Anna E. "Welding Brass Tits on the Armor: An Examination of the Quest Metaphor in Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown."Children's Literature in Education 23.3 (Sept. 1992): 143-156. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 May 2011.
  • Sackelman, Ellen R. "More Than Skin Deep: Robin McKinley's Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast." Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Ed. Jerilyn Fisher and Ellen S. Silber. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. 32-34. Rpt. inChildren's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 May 2011.
  • Cadden, Mike. "Home Is a Matter of Blood, Time, and Genre: Essentialism in Burnett and McKinley." ARIEL 28.1 (Jan. 1997): 53-67. Rpt. inChildren's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 May 2011.
  • Sanders, Lynn Moss. "Girls Who Do Things: The Protagonists of Robin McKinley's Fantasy Fiction." ALAN Review 24.1 (Fall 1996): 38-42. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 May 2011.
  • Cadden, Michael. "The Illusion of Control: Narrative Authority in Robin McKinley's Beauty and The Blue Sword." Mythlore 20.2 (Spring 1994): 16-19. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 May 2011.
  • Maryellen, Harris. "Beauty and the Beast: 20th Century Romance?" Merveilles and Contes 3.1 (May 1989): 75-83. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Scot Peacock. Vol. 81. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 May 2011.
  • Rutledge, Amelia A. "Robin McKinley's Deerskin: Challenging Narcissisms." Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy Tales Studies 15.2 (2001): 168-182. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 May 2011.

References

  1. ^ McKinley "Homepage". http://robinmckinleysblog.com/2011/10/18/the-announcement-you-don%E2%80%99t-want-to-hear/=Robin McKinley. Retrieved 3 June 2011. 
  2. ^ "FAQ". FAQ. http://www.robinmckinley.com. Retrieved 26 May 2011. 
  3. ^ Karrenbock, Marilyn H. (1986). "(Jennifer) (Carolyn) Robin McKinley". American Writers for Children Since 1960: Fiction 52. 
  4. ^ "Robin McKinley". Contemporary Authors Online. Gale. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1000066853&v=2.1&u=uclosangeles&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w. Retrieved 26 May 2011. 
  5. ^ Robin McKinley. "Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech. 1985.". http://www.robinmckinley.com/etc/speech_newbery.php. Retrieved 27 February 2011. 
  6. ^ Karrenbrock, Marilyn H. (1986). "(Jennifer) (Carolyn) Robin McKinley". American Writers for Children Since 1960: Fiction 52. 
  7. ^ Official Website FAQ
  8. ^ "Award Winners & Nominees". World Fantasy Awards. http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/awardslist.html/. Retrieved 26 May 2011. 
  9. ^ "Previous Award and Honor Books Recipients". Phoenix Award. Children's Literature Association. http://www.childlitassn.org/phoenix_award.html. Retrieved 26 May 2011. 
  10. ^ "Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Winners". Mythopoeic Society. http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/winners/. Retrieved 3 June 2011. 
  • Contemporary Authors Online, Thomson Gale, 2004. Entry Updated : 21 October 2004.

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Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. © March 2006 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more
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