Ursula & Charlotte

Ursula Nordstrom is primarily known as one of the twentieth century's great editors --- as many have remarked, "The Maxwell Perkins of children's literature." Yet besides being an editor, she was also the author of two remarkable novels, one published and the second --- now lost forever --- unpublished. And her life and Charlotte's intertwined and crisscrossed in many surprising dimensions. 

Charlotte started her career in publishing in the adult trade (as opposed to textbook) department at Harper & Brothers. But she was delighted when the legendary and brilliant, if terrifying, Ursula Nordstrom offered her a job in the children's book department.   

Unpredictable, mercurial, with a biting, sometimes wicked, edgy sense of humor, Ursula believed passionately in fostering talented people in their work and lives. Her dedication to children's literature was fierce and complete, as was her commitment to understanding and helping talented writers and artists flower. In her, Charlotte found an active proponent of the idea that children's books should be honest, faithful to the sometimes difficult experience of childhood, an idea  which Charlotte had always held. (Ursula Nordstrom, pictured above and left, in a photo taken in 1969. The cover of Dear Genius, an anthology of Ursula's letters to many of the greats of children's literature, including Charlotte, is at the right. The book, which  was edited by Leonard Marcus, is a must for students of contemporary children's literature.)

In this sense, Ursula and Charlotte were soul-mates. Over the years, the two of them would become identified in the field for their shared respect for children's minds and feelings, and their belief that children were capable of understanding the best that any writer or artist could offer them. Although they became colleagues and equals, beyond a doubt, Ursula started out as Charlotte's mentor in children's book editing. And she also started Charlotte on the road to her own long and fecund career as a children's book writer. (Charlotte at work at HarperCollins back when it was Harper and Row). 

She even worked editorially (as did her friend and Greenwillow editor, Susan Hirschman) on the novel The Secret Language --- the single published book written by her own beloved editor and mentor, the redoubtable Ursula. (Ursula wrote a second novel, a sequel to The Secret Language, which she read chapters of to Charlotte. Charlotte remembers it as "Marvelous", but Ursula, unable to complete the last chapter of the book, burned the manuscript shortly before her death in 1988).  

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