Eloise Greenfield

Eloise Greenfield (May 17, 1929 – August 5, 2021) was an American children's book and biography author and poet famous for her descriptive, rhythmic style and positive portrayal of the African-American experience.

Greenfield was born Eloise Little in Parmele, North Carolina, and grew up in Washington, D.C., during the Great Depression in the Langston Terrace housing project, which provided a warm childhood experience for her.

[3][4] Greenfield experienced racism first-hand in the segregated southern U.S., especially when she visited her grandparents in North Carolina and Virginia.

[5] She graduated from Cardozo Senior High School in 1946 and attended Miner Teachers College (now known as University of the District of Columbia) until 1949.

[7] She resigned from the Patent Office in 1960 to spend more time with her children; she took temporary jobs and continued to write, publishing some of her work in magazines during the 1960s.

[2] After joining the District of Columbia Black Writers Workshop in 1971, Greenfield began to write books for children.

[10] Her semi-autobiographical book Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir (1979), co-written with her mother, describes her happy childhood in a neighborhood with strong positive relationships.

[11]In 1971, Greenfield began work for the District of Columbia Black Writers' Workshop, as co-director of adult fiction and then, in 1973, as director of children's literature.

In later years, Greenfield experienced sight and hearing loss, but she continued speaking and publishing books with the help of her daughter.

[2] The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation wrote that Greenfield "broadened the path toward a more diverse American literature for children.

In 1990 she received a Recognition of Merit Award from the George G. Stone Center for Children's Books in Claremont, California.

[8] When Greenfield accepted the Teaching for Change Education for Liberation Award in 2016, she said: Our work is [continued] so that children can see themselves in books, see their beauty and intelligence, see the strengths they have inherited from a long line of predecessors, see their ability to overcome difficulties, challenges, pain, and find deep joy and laughter in books, in characters they recognize as themselves.