Hunter, Bernice Thurman 1922–2002

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Hunter, Bernice Thurman 1922–2002

PERSONAL: Born November 3, 1922, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; died, 2002; daughter of William Henry (a laborer) and Francelina (a homemaker; maiden name, Coe) Thurman; married Lloyd George Hunter (a telephone company employee), November 16, 1942; children: Anita, Heather. Education: Runnymede Collegiate Institute, commercial diploma, 1939.

CAREER: Writer. Eaton Co. Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, bookkeeper and machine operator, 1942–70, general office clerk, 1970–75. Guest speaker at schools and libraries; volunteer worker for Canadian Cancer Society.

MEMBER: Writers' Union of Canada, Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators and Performers.

AWARDS, HONORS: Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire Book Award (Toronto Chapter), 1981, and City of Toronto Book Award Contest finalist, 1982, both for That Scatterbrain Booky; Ruth Schwartz Award finalist, 1983, for With Love from Booky; Vicky Metcalf Award, Canadian Authors Association, 1990, for body of work.

WRITINGS:

"BOOKY" TRILOGY; CHILDREN'S FICTION

That Scatterbrain Booky, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1981.

With Love from Booky, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1983.

As Ever, Booky, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1985.

That Scatterbrain Booky, With Love from Booky, [and] As Ever, Booky (boxed set), Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1989.

"MARGARET" TRILOGY; CHILDREN'S FICTION

A Place for Margaret, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1984.

Margaret in the Middle, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1986.

Margaret on Her Way, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1988.

OTHER; CHILDREN'S FICTION

Lamplighter, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1987.

The Railroader, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1990.

The Firefighter, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1991.

Hawk and Stretch, Scholastic/Tab (Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada), 1993.

Amy's Promise, Scholastic Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995.

Janey's Choice, Scholastic Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1998.

Two Much Alike, Scholastic Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000.

The Runaway, illustrated by Tony Meers, Scholastic Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001.

It Takes Two (sequel to Two Much Alike), Scholastic Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

The Girls They Left Behind, Fitzhenry & Whiteside (Markham, Ontario, Canada), 2005.

Also contributor to books, readers, magazines, and newspapers, including the Toronto Star, Crackers, and JAM.

SIDELIGHTS: One of Canada's leading writers for children, Bernice Thurman Hunter did not begin publishing her books until she was nearly sixty years old. She earned considerable praise over the next twenty years for the authentic historical settings recreated in her fictional tales. This accuracy often stemmed from Hunter's own experiences. Her "Booky" trilogy is autobiographical, while many of the elements in the "Margaret" trilogy come from these same childhood memories. "Hunter attracts middle school audiences through her consistent ability to create likeable, but ordinary, central juvenile characters whom she places in loving, supporting environments and surrounds with interesting, historically accurate details," asserted David H. Jenkinson in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers.

Hunter was born and educated in Toronto, but her great-grandparents were pioneers, settling in the wilds of Muskoka and the village of Swansea, which is now a part of Toronto. "These pioneer roots have furnished me with lots of ideas to incorporate into my books and stories," Hunter once told CA. Hunter first began writing in early childhood and read her stories to friends.

Inspired by L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Hunter was fortunate enough to meet the author. But this meeting, during the course of which Montgomery stressed the importance of higher education, made Hunter's writing ambitions seem unreachable. No one in her family had attended college, and this fact led to her loss of confidence. She quit school before earning her diploma and went to work at Eaton's, the Canadian mail order company, thinking that she would never be a writer.

Despite this belief, Hunter did continue to write, and it was Alexander Ross of the Toronto Star who finally gave her the encouragement she needed to be published. After reading and publishing Hunter's column on becoming a grandmother, Ross sent a letter urging the author to keep writing. So Hunter did, and her first book, That Scatterbrain Booky, was accepted by Scholastic and published in 1981.

Based on Hunter's own childhood during the Depression in Toronto, That Scatterbrain Booky led to two sequels that follow Booky as she grows up: With Love from Booky and As Ever, Booky. The trilogy begins when Booky is ten, and her tale concludes seven years later, at the beginning of World War II. The trials of Booky's financially poor but emotionally rich family are episodically related by Booky herself, and each chapter stands alone as a separate story. Adding to the historical detail are actual pages reproduced from the Eaton's Catalog, as well as photos of Hunter's family and passages from newspapers of the time period.

Set in a similar historical time period, Hunter's "Margaret" series—A Place for Margaret, Margaret in the Middle, and Margaret on Her Way—begins in 1925 when eleven-year-old Margaret contracts tuberculosis. Sent to stay at her Aunt Marg and Uncle Herb's farm during her illness, Margaret forms a bond with these relatives, who ask her to remain permanently. Coming from a family of ten children, Margaret decides to stay, forming a special friendship with the farm's Clydesdale horse, which eventually leads to her decision to become a veterinarian. Lynn Wytenbroek, writing in Canadian Literature, praised the characters Hunter created in the "Margaret" trilogy and pointed out that Margaret's adventures are "so captivating" that the "novels come alive and hold a fascination rare in any genre. There is no doubt that Hunter is one of Canada's best writers for young people."

Hunter also wrote three books that focus on vocations: Lamplighter, The Railroader, and The Firefighter. In Lamplighter, six-year-old Willie Adams is visiting Toronto with his mother when he sees a man lighting the gas street lamps. He believes he has found the answer to his uncle's question about what Willie wants to be when he grows up. The book spans only a year, so little progress is made toward this goal, but the story also describes the trials and tribulations of a pioneer family. Jenkinson called The Railroader and The Firefighter "the least successful of Hunter's books, possibly because, in attempting to tell a complete story, Hunter moves away from her episodic, anecdotal style." The Railroader is about a twelve-year-old boy, Skip, who wants to work for the railroad someday. His friend Charlie, the watchman, teaches him how to signal the trains with lanterns. This information becomes critical when Charlie has a heart attack and Skip must prevent an accident. In The Firefighter, eleven-year-old Terry is living with his aunts in Toronto. Recently orphaned, Terry struggles with his grief until his behavior degenerates. Due to a growing interest in firefighting, he spends much of his free time at the fire hall. He becomes an arson suspect when he is repeatedly found on the scene at fires. Terry's name is cleared, however, when he solves the case and identifies the real criminal.

In Amy's Promise, a young girl promises her dying mother that she will watch over her siblings, including a new baby. When her grandmother comes to help, they argue frequently—usually about the number of chores she assigns to Amy—but her love for Amy soon becomes apparent and they work together to help the girl's father overcome his grief.

Two Much Alike, set in Detroit, Michigan during the 1950s, is the story of Carrie and Connie and the problems that arise from their being twins. A Resource Links reviewer felt that "more emphasis is placed on the psychological rather than the historical, a departure for the author." In the sequel, It Takes Two, the girls' mother gives birth to a pair of twin boys just after their thirteenth birthday. The girls, who by now are caught up in the issues of new teens, are called upon to help with the new babies. Two more children also means that they may have to move to a bigger house to accommodate the larger family. As with the previous book, several trips to Toronto to see extended family are included.

Graham Robbertson, an eleven-year-old English boy, is the protagonist in The Runaway. Graham runs away from his foster home at every chance. His foster mother is good to him and the other orphaned boys, but Graham desperately wants to find his birth mother. He is eventually placed in the Greystone School for Homeless boys, where he does well. Hunter takes him through life into adulthood and addresses his heritage through a half-sister. Jill McClay noted in Resource Links that "Hunter evokes a sense of the stern but not unfeeling climate of life in post-war England."

Hunter was writing her last story, The Girls They Left Behind, when she died in 2002, and it was completed by one of her daughters and published. The tale is set in 1943 Toronto, where Natalie Brigham is a seventeen-year-old girl who shares much of Hunter's own history. Tired of seeing off young men to fight in World War II, she quits school and her job at Eaton's and becomes an assembler in a plant that makes bombers. Natalie's story is a window into that period, and it also reflects the feelings of women after the war ended, when they were sent home and their jobs given to the returning men. Other characters include Natalie's cousin, Carmen, who goes missing in action, and her best friend, Eloise, who marries her boyfriend before he ships out. The story is told through Natalie's narrative and diary entries.

Hunter once told CA: "My greatest satisfaction comes from today's children who tell me that they wish they had lived in 'the old days' so they could be my characters' friends. Many times I have been asked where Starr, the horse in A Place for Margaret, lives now so that they can go and visit him. They do not consider for a minute that a horse that was adult in 1925 could not possibly be grazing in some green meadow."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, 4th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1995.

PERIODICALS

Canadian Literature, winter, 1992, Lynn Wytenbroek, review of the "Margaret" trilogy, p. 191.

Emergency Librarian, January-February, 1998, review of Amy's Promise, p. 45.

Kliatt, September, 2005, Robin M. Dasher-Alston, review of The Girls They Left Behind, p. 20.

Resource Links, October, 1999, review of Lamplighter, pp. 12-13; December, 2000, review of Two Much Alike, pp. 28-29; December, 2001, Jill McClay, review of The Runaway, p. 15; February, 2003, Ann Ketcheson, review of It Takes Two, p. 10; June, 2005, Victoria Pennell, review of The Girls They Left Behind, p. 30.

School Library Journal, August, 2005, Ginny Gustin, review of The Girls They Left Behind, p. 129.