Mathis, Sharon Bell (b. 1937), children's and young adult author, columnist, librarian, and educator. Sharon Bell Mathis's concern for the welfare of young people is evident in her career as a teacher and librarian, but closest to her heart is her role as author. Mathis explains that “I write to salute the strength in Black children and to say to them, ‘Stay strong, stay Black and stay alive’” (quoted in Something about the Author, vol. 3, 1987).
Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Mathis grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, where she attended parochial schools. Her parents, John Willie and Alice Mary (Frazier) Bell, exposed her to a vast array of literary works and encouraged her to write poems, stories, and plays. Despite her affinity for this work, however, Mathis decided not to pursue a career as an author, believing that she would neither be able to make a living at it nor be as great a contributor as were Richard Wright and other authors whom she admired. In 1960, after graduating from Morgan State College (now Morgan State University) in Baltimore with a BA in sociology, Mathis began teaching.
1969 marked the beginning of her literary career when “The Fire Escape” was published in News Explorer and she was named director of the children's literature division of the newly formed D.C. Black Writers Workshop. A year later, Brooklyn Story (1970) appeared and two of her poems, “Ladies Magazine” and “R.S.V.P” were included in Nikki Giovanni's Night Comes Softly: An Anthology of Black Female Voices.
Mathis's second book, Sidewalk Story, was chosen as one of the Child Study Association of America's Children's Books of the Year. Her third, Teacup Full of Roses (1972), was chosen as one of the Child Study Association of America's Children's Books of the Year, one of the New York Times Best Books of the Year, one of the American Library Association's Best Young Adult Books, and was a runner-up for the Coretta Scott King Award. During this period, Mathis was also serving as a writer in residence at Howard University while at work on a biography of Ray Charles. Starting in 1972, she became the author of “Ebony Juniors Speak!,” a monthly column in Ebony Jr!, and “Society and Youth,” a biweekly column in Liteside: D.C. Buyers Guide.
The juvenile biography Ray Charles (1973) won the Coretta Scott King Award in 1974 and was the inspiration for her next book, Listen for the Fig Tree (1974). The Hundred Penny Box (1975), in which the main character, like Mathis's own grandfather, keeps a collection of pennies, was chosen as a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and was the basis for a children's film. Cartwheels (1977) focuses on three girls' attempts to change their lives by winning a gymnastics competition. There was a long hiatus until 1991, when Red Dog Blue Fly was published.
Sharon Bell Mathis enables the young person to “stay strong, stay Black and stay alive” by infusing her works with references to other notable Black artists and art forms. Excerpts from Black gospel songs and Bible verses, plus quotes from African poet and political leader Léopold Sédar Senghor and African American poets Nikki Giovanni and June Jordan, salute the heritage to which she attributes her achievements: “My success is due to the glorious African blood which flows throughout my body.”
Bibliography
- Frances Smith Foster, “Sharon Bell Mathis,” in DLB,
vol. 33 , Afro-American Fiction Writers after 1955, eds. Thadious M. Davis and Trudier Harris, 1984, pp. 170–173. Something about the Author Autobiography Series, ed. Adele Sarkissian,vol. 3 , 1987, pp. 162–163. “Mathis Sharon Bell,” in Something about the Author,vol. 58 , ed. Anne Commire, 1990, pp. 124–132. Who's Who in America,vol. 2 , 1994, p. 2252
Saundra Liggins
