Konigsburg, Elaine (1930-2013), was an American children’s author and illustrator. Her fiction is noted for its humor and its insights into the minds of children. Her books are often published under the name E. L. Konigsburg.
Konigsburg won two Newbery Medals, in 1968 for From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967) and in 1997 for The View from Saturday (1996). The first novel tells about a girl who runs away from home with her younger brother to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The second novel portrays four members of a sixth-grade championship quiz bowl team and the paralyzed teacher who serves as their coach. The Newbery Medal is awarded annually to the best children’s book by an American. Konigsburg also won the 2001 Regina Medal awarded by the Catholic Library Association to an individual for a lifetime contribution to children’s literature.
Konigsburg’s other novels include Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth (1968), About the B’Nai Bagel (1969), A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver (1973), The Second Mrs. Gioconda (1975), Father’s Arcane Daughter (1976), Silent to the Bone (2000), The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place (2004), and The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World (2007). Selections of her short stories were published as Altogether Now, One at a Time (1971, 1989) and Throwing Shadows (1979). She illustrated many of her books, using her three children as models.
Konigsburg was born on Feb. 10, 1930, in New York City. Her original name was Elaine Lobl. She married psychologist David Konigsburg in 1952. She received a B.S. degree in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University the same year. A collection of nine speeches Konigsburg made about children’s literature was published as Talk, Talk: A Children’s Book Author Speaks to Grown-Ups (1995). Konigsburg died on April 19, 2013.
