Waldron, Kathleen Cook

views updated

Waldron, Kathleen Cook

Personal

Born in Denver, CO; immigrated to Canada, 1976; married; children: three. Hobbies and other interests: Sharing books with children, enjoying the outdoors, gardening, canoeing, hiking.

Addresses

Home and office—100 Mile House, British Columbia, Canada.

Career

Children's author. Worked variously as a playground supervisor, swimming instructor, lifeguard, waitress, landscaper, housepainter, tree planter, log-home builder, and teacher.

Member

Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators, and Performers, Writer's Union of Canada.

Awards, Honors

Amelia Francis Howard Gibbon Award shortlist, 1986, for A Winter's Yarn; Our Choice Award, Canadian Children's Book Centre, 1994, for A Wilderness Passover.

Writings

A Winter's Yarn, illustrated by Deborah Turney-Zagwyn, Red Deer College Press (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), 1986.

A Wilderness Passover, illustrated by Leslie Gould, Red Deer College Press (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), 1994.

Ivan and the All-Stars, illustrated by Mark Thurman, Boardwalk Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995.

Loon Lake Fishing Derby, illustrated by Dean Griffiths, Orca Book Publishers (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 1999.

Joseph, Master of Dreams, Roussan (Montréal, Quebec, Canada), 2000.

Rough Day at Loon Lake, illustrated by Dean Griffiths, Orca Book Publishers (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 2002.

Five Stars for Emily, Orca Book Publishers (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 2004.

Roundup at the Palace, illustrated by Alan and Lea Daniel, Red Deer College Press (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), 2006.

(With Ann Walsh) The ABC of Forestry, Orca Book Publishers (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 2008.

Work included in anthology Winds through Time, edited by Ann Walsh, Beach Holme (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 1998.

Sidelights

Born in the United States, Kathleen Cook Waldron adopted more than a new nationality when she moved with her husband and children to the rural landscape of Cariboo, British Columbia, Canada, an isolated region located fifty miles away from the nearest town. In Cariboo, she and her family built their own log home and there Waldron (a teacher by training) home schooled her three children. A devotee of nature, she and her family planted more than 350,000 trees in order to reforest their plot of land. Such experiences, shared with her children, have inspired Waldron's writing for young readers; her books include Ivan and the All-Stars, Rough Day at Loon Lake, Five Stars for Emily, and Roundup at the Palace. Focusing on a boy and his father as they drive south through a blizzard to exhibit their skittish but handsome prize bull, Buster, at Colorado's National Western Stock Show, the picture book Roundup at the Palace is based on a true event. Four children with minds of their own find a clever way to beat the heat of a summer day in Rough Day at Loon Lake, another picture book by Waldron that was praised as a "clever tale with real charm" by a Kirkus Reviews writer.

Waldron's move to a small town is fictinalized in Five Stars for Emily, which details a young city girl's experiences adapting to a more bucolic lifestyle. Ten-year-old Emily is disappointed when she finds out that her much-anticipated "five star" vacation with Aunt Hannah is actually a trip to a rural town in northern British Columbia. Disappointment turns to devastation when she then discovers that the house where she and her aunt are lodging does not have running water, electricity, or nearby shopping malls. Rather than shop, Hannah spends her time collecting wood, preparing meals, and shoveling snow. Waldron intersperses humor throughout her book by detailing the culture shock Emily experiences. In one instance, the girl mistakes a black dog for a black bear, while another comedic incident involves Emily's trip to the outhouse. Maria Forte, reviewing Five Stars for Emily in Resource Links, commented on Waldron's seamless, smooth-flowing narrative style and noted that Five Stars for Emily contains "enough descriptions to challenge a young reader." However, for the critic, Waldron's real success is in her depiction of a likeable protagonist; as Forte acknowledged, "young readers will enjoy being in Emily's ‘head’, sharing her fears, her feelings and her doubts."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2001, Ilene Cooper, review of Joseph, Master of Dreams, p. 1884.

Canadian Review of Materials, September, 1994, review of Wilderness Passover, p. 135; June 9, 2000, review of Loon Lake Fishing Derby; October 18, 2002, review of Rough Day at Loon Lake.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2002, review of Rough Day at Loon Lake, p. 420; March 1, 2006, review of Roundup at the Palace, p. 241.

Resource Links, April, 1996, review of Ivan and the All-Stars, p. 159; October, 1999, review of Loon Lake Fishing Derby, p. 3; February, 2001, review of Joseph, Master of Dreams, p. 20; July, 2002, Valerie Pollock, review of Rough Day at Loon Lake, p. 8; October, 2004, Maria Forte, review of Five Stars for Emily, p. 21; October, 2006, Wendy Hogan, review of Roundup at the Palace, p. 1.

School Library Journal, July, 2006, Elaine Lesh Morgan, review of Roundup at the Palace, p. 88.