Young Adult Authors: Lloyd Alexander

Another great author has recently left us in May this year, Lloyd Chudley Alexander. He wrote more than forty books for children, teenagers and adults. He was born in 1924 in Pennsylvania, and raised in the suburbs. During the time he was growing up, was in the depression, and his parents never read any books, they just purchased them from Salvation Army "to fill up empty shelves."

When Lloyd was fifteen years old, he decided he wanted to write, but his parents really afraid and wanted him to do that and told him to forget it They wanted him to do something "useful" so they suggested college. They couldn't afford to send him, so he had to work. He went for a bank job that he was not good at. He saved some money, and went to college. Lloyd only stayed for one term. He then began an army career, ending with a position as counterintelligence, after training in Wales. That was the setting of a lot of his books.

From there, he went to the University of Paris. When he was in France, that is when his writing career began. There he met his wife, Janine Denni, in 1946. They had one daughter , Madeline Khalil who died in 1990. Lloyd died in May, two weeks after his wife died. They were married sixty-one years.

His most popular works are the fantasy series books The Chronicles of Prydain. The story is about a young man called Taran who is made an Assistant Pig Keeper, but really wants to be a hero. His friends, a creature called a Gurgi, Princess Eilonwy and Fflewddur Fflam-a bard and king, and Doli the dwarf go on adventures with him. The series which consists of five books, is slightly based on Welsh mythology.

The first novels in the Prydain series were based on Disney's The Black Cauldron. The High King received the Newberry Medal in 1969. He has also won the American Book Award and the National Book Award.

Another popular series is Westmark. His last book, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio was published this August. Lloyd has said about the novel before he died, "I Have Finished My Life Work." His books, as said in The Dictionary of Literary Biography, have a special depth. The characters in his books have the same feelings, think the same way, and struggle as people do in the twentieth century. Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain were his influences. He has said, "...my dearest friends and teachers. I loved all the world's mythologies-King Arthur was one of my heroes."

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