Edwards, Edna

Biography / Administrative History

Edna Edwards grew up in Kentucky and went to school in Tennessee at Carson-Newman College. She graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1951. She worked as a librarian for Kenwick Elementary School in Fayette County, Kentucky. She received her masters degree in education from UCLA in 1961. Beginning in 1961, Edwards worked as a librarian for Horace Mann Elementary School in Beverly Hills, California. She took a sabbatical leave for a semester during the 1970-1971 school year. In May 1970, she sent letters to about twenty-five authors and illustrators of children's books requesting their participation in making taped interviews. Edwards traveled throughout the United States and Europe to conduct the interviews, usually at the interviewees home. She struggled to find a publisher for the interviews. In 1973, the Center for Cassette Studies in Hollywood, California agreed to publish the tapes. The interviewees included Lloyd Alexander, Nina Bawden, Roald Dahl, Meindert De Jong, Penelope Farmer, Sid Fleischman, Ezra Jack Keats, Elaine Konigsburg, Madeleine L'Engle, Leo Lionni, Myra Cohn Livingston, Mary Norton, Bill Peet, Frances Clarke Sayers, Maurice Sendak, and Brian Wildsmith.

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