Hoose, Phillip M. 1947-

PERSONAL:

Name is pronounced "hose"; born 1947, in South Bend, IN; son of Darwin Hoose and Patti Williams; married; wife's name Shoshana; children: Hannah, Ruby. Education: Attended Indiana University and Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Hobbies and other interests: Running.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Portland, ME. E-mail—Hoose@gwi.net.

CAREER:

Author, musician, and conservationist. Nature Conservancy, Portland, ME, staff member, 1977—; songwriter and performing musician, 1984—. Cofounder and member of board of directors, Children's Music Network, 1986—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Christopher Award and American Library Association Notable Book citation, both 1993, both for It's Our World Too! Stories of Young People Who Are Making a Difference; Jane Addams Children's Book Award honor book citation, 1999, for Hey, Little Ant; National Book Award finalist, 2001, for We Were There Too! Young People in U.S. History; Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, 2005, for The Race to Save the Lord God Bird.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Building an Ark: Tools for the Preservation of Natural Diversity through Land Protection, Island Press (Covelo, CA), 1981.

Hoosiers: The Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana, Vintage Books (New York, NY), 1986, revised edition, Guild Press of Indiana (Indianapolis, IN), 1995.

Necessities: Racial Barriers in American Sports, Random House (New York, NY), 1989.

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (New York, NY), 2004.

Perfect, Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me (memoir), Walker & Company (New York, NY), 2006.

FOR CHILDREN

It's Our World Too! Stories of Young People Who Are Making a Difference, Joy Street Books (Boston, MA), 1993, new edition published as It's Our World Too! Stories of Young People Who Are Making a Difference: How They Do It—How YOU Can, Too!, foreword by Pete Seeger, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 2002.

(With daughter, Hannah Hoose) Hey, Little Ant, illustrated by Debbie Tilley, Tricycle Press (Berkeley, CA), 1998.

We Were There, Too! Young People in U.S. History, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Phillip M. Hoose, a conservationist and musician by profession, was born in South Bend, Indiana, an area famous for the popularity of high school basketball teams. Hoose discusses the history of Indiana basketball in his book Hoosiers: The Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana. He begins at the start of Hoosier basketball just prior to 1900 and up to the 1980s. Reviewing the book for Voice of Youth Advocates, Hilary King commented: "Hoose has done an admirable job at relaying the tempo and feeling of the remarkable Hoosiers."

In Necessities: Racial Barriers in American Sports, Hoose examines the attitudes of players, coaches, managers, owners, and the media toward members of minorities in sports. He interviewed more than one hundred people, including coaches, athletes, and news people, and found that minorities are largely kept out of positions that require decision making, such as catchers, managers, or coaches. Business Week reviewer Ron Stodghill II called the book "a hard-hitting analysis of the political and social dynamics that typecast minorities in professional athletics and have helped shape American sports."

Hoose's first book for children, It's Our World Too! Stories of Young People Who Are Making a Difference, became a Christopher Award winner. The book is a collection of fourteen true stories that show how children and teens have stood up and taken action in worthwhile causes, like feeding the homeless, lobbying for a new park, or opposing racism and gang violence. A Publishers Weekly contributor found it a "highly inspirational and engaging book." Horn Book contributor Margaret A. Bush noted: "Hoose's upbeat scenarios and practical advice should persuade many that they really can make a difference."

Hey, Little Ant, Hoose's second book for children, was written with his daughter Hannah. The simple tale features an ant who begs for his life when a young child is about to step on him. He has a family at home, the ant pleads. The child, however, has friends who are urging him on, and he does not believe that ants have feelings. Hoose never reveals if the ant lives or dies, instead he asks the reader to decide. A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book a "parable about mercy and empathy," and Reed Mangels, writing in Vegetarian Journal, found it "a great resource for thinking and talking about respecting other beings." The book became a commercial success, was printed in eight languages, and is often used as a teaching tool for tolerance; but it might easily have been buried beneath rejection slips before it got published. Hoose and his daughter originally created the story as a performance piece with music, and it always caught the fancy of their audiences. Hoose felt that the material would make a successful children's book, but it took him more that two years to find an editor who would agree with him—and accept the story's unresolved ending. As Hoose revealed in a Peacework article: "Hannah and I believed to our souls in Ant. I didn't give up." The author added: "Usually when children want something and they are told no, they don't walk away. They ask, Why? and then listen carefully for a weakness in the defense. Then they adjust and try again. Hey, Little Ant became a book because those of us who believed in it most were childlike in our approach and antlike in our persistence."

It took Hoose six years to research and write his next book, We Were There, Too! Young People in U.S. History, his third book for children and a finalist for the National Book Award. The collection of seventy true stories demonstrates that children and teenagers played an important part in the history of the United States. A reviewer writing in Horn Book commented that whether the author's focus is on an individual or on young people within a group, "Hoose ties lively narratives to larger historical events through cogent chapter introductions." On the Children's Literature, Web site, reviewer Greg M. Romaneck observed: "Written with great care and compassion, this is one of the finest children's books dealing with American history this writer has come across in recent years." "A treasure chest of history come to life," noted Herman Sutter in School Library Journal, "this is an inspired collection."

For his book The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, the author details two hundred years of history of the ivory billed woodpecker, which was once prolific in America's south but has long been extinct (although a hunter made an unconfirmed sighting in Louisiana in 1999). The author—who took his title from the shouts of "Lord, God" by people when they first saw the bird—interviews a wide range of people for his book, including those from an expedition that spotted the bird in northern Cuba in the 1980's and ornithologist James Tanner, author of a widely respected study of the Ivory-billed woodpecker. "At its heart, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird is the story of four Cornell scientists who tracked what seemed to be the last population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers into a great virgin swamp forest in Louisiana in the 1930s," the author said during his Boston Globe/Horn Book Award acceptance speech. In an interview with Nathalie Op De Beeck of Publishers Weekly, the author noted: "The Ivory-bill is beautiful, and there's something so mysterious about it. It flits in and out of our consciousness and our geography as well." The author added: "I want to show my readers that extinction is both tragic and preventable, and I want to help readers love that bird and mourn its loss."

"Sidebars add engrossing details, and extensive back matter bespeaks exemplary nonfiction," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird. "But it's the author's passion that compels." Eric Nagourney, writing in the New York Times Book Review, commented: "Hoose's meticulously researched book … tells a good story meant to prompt questions about the loss of other species as well." In her review in the School Library Journal, Laurie von Mehren wrote: "This meticulously researched labor of love uses drama, suspense, and mystery to tell the story."

In Perfect, Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me, Hoose presents a memoir about his life as a kid in a small Indiana town and his correspondence with New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen after he finds out that Larsen is a cousin once removed. The author recounts stories such as how he became very popular in school when Larsen threw a perfect game in the 1956 World Series, how he met some of Larsen's teammates (including Yogi Berra and manager Casey Stengel), and how he connects with Larsen nearly fifty years later. Bill Ott, writing in Booklist, noted that "there was something special about baseball in the fifties, and Hoose nails it as surely as Larsen mowed down those 27 Dodgers." In his review in the Library Journal, Will Marston wrote: "Teens will appreciate this story of an ordinary boy and his brush with real superheroes." A Kirkus Reviews contributor commented: "Hoose's genuine passion for the game shines through,… and the self-effacing descriptions of his boyhood troubles make you want to root, root, root for the kid with the big glasses and the wild arm." In his review in the Library Journal, Paul Kaplan commented: "This well-penned reminiscence will appeal to both general and younger adults."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Hoose, Phillip M., Perfect, Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me, Walker & Company (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

American Libraries, December, 1986, Bill Ott, review of Hoosiers: The Fabulous Basketball Life of Indiana, p. 824.

Booklist, August, 2001, Ilene Cooper, review of We Were There, Too! Young People in U.S. History, p. 2117; June 1, 2004, Carolyn Phelan, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, p. 1723; December 1, 2004, Ilene Cooper, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, p. 670; September 1, 2006, Bill Ott, reviews (two) of Perfect, Once Removed, pp. 46, 176.

Bookwatch, November, 2004, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird.

Book World, July 11, 1993, Joe Wakelee-Lynch, "Kids Do the Noblest Things," p. 11.

Business Week, June 19, 1989, Ron Stodghill II, review of Necessities: Racial Barriers in American Sports, p. 16.

Horn Book, September-October, 1993, Margaret A. Bush, review of It's Our World Too! Stories of Young People Who Are Making a Difference, pp. 621-622; September, 2001, review of We Were There, Too!, p. 610; September-October, 2004, Joanna Rudge Long, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, p. 605; January-February, 2006, Leda Schubert, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, p. 29, and "Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Acceptance," transcript of author's speech.

Horn Book Guide, fall, 1999, Carolyn Shute, review of Hey, Little Ant, p. 361.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1989, review of Necessities, p. 603; July 1, 2004, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, p. 631; July 15, 2006, review of Perfect, Once Removed, p. 710.

Library Journal, March 15, 1981, Susan Beverly Kuklin, review of Building an Ark: Tools for the Preservation of Natural Diversity Through Land Protection, p. 671; May 1, 1989, William A. Hoffman, review of Necessities, p. 82; September 1, 2006, Paul Kaplan, review of Perfect, Once Removed, p. 154; November, 2006, Will Marston, review of Perfect, Once Removed, p. 173.

Nation, May 8, 1989, Nicolaus Mills, review of Necessities, pp. 634-636.

New York Times Book Review, August 8, 2004, Eric Nagourney, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird.

Peacework, May, 2000, Phillip Hoose, "How ‘Hey, Little Ant’ Became a Book."

Publishers Weekly, June 7, 1993, review of It's Our World Too!, p. 72; September 14, 1998, review of Hey, Little Ant, p. 67; August 20, 2001, review of We Were There, Too, p. 81; August 23, 2004, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, p. 56; October 25, 2004, Nathalie Op De Beeck, "Phillip Hoose: Championing a Cause," interview with author, p. 23; June 19, 2006, review of Perfect, Once Removed, p. 49.

School Library Journal, December, 1998, Maryann H. Owen, review of Hey, Little Ant, p. 98; August, 2001, Herman Sutter, review of We Were There, Too, p. 198; September, 2004, Laurie von Mehren, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, p. 227; April, 2005, review of The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, p. S48.

Time, November 20, 2006, Sean Gregory, review of Perfect, Once Removed, p. 76.

Vegetarian Journal, May, 2001, Reed Mangels, review of Hey, Little Ant, p. 31.

Virginia Quarterly Review, spring, 1987, review of Hoosiers, p. 68.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 1987, Hilary King, review of Hoosiers, p. 45; October, 1993, Sari Feldman, review of It's Our World Too!, p. 242.

ONLINE

BookPage,http://www.bookpage.com/ (January 13, 2002), Ron Kaplan, review of We Were There, Too!

Children's Book Council,http://www.cbcbooks.org/ (January 13, 2002), review of We Were There, Too!

Children's Literature,http://www.childrenslit.com/ (March 6, 2002), Greg M. Romaneck, review of We Were There, Too!, and author biography.

Crimson Bird,http://www.crimsonbird.com/ (January 13, 2002), review of We Were There, Too!

Phillip M. Hoose Home Page,http://www.philliphoose.com (March 11, 2007).