People are less likely to know of Ursula Nordstrom than of the books she edited: Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, Charlotte’s Web, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, Stuart Little, Harriet the Spy, Freaky Friday, and many more. Nordstrom had an outsized impact on modern American children’s literature, urging the authors she worked with to write “books good enough for you”—and she was also a queer woman.
Nancy Hudgins’s middle grade biography of Nordstrom is a fitting tribute. Hudgins balances insights about Nordstrom’s personality, interesting insider information about the editing and publishing industry, thoughtful observations on how Nordstrom’s values informed her work, and a look at how book censorship, particularly around marginalized identities, has been going on for a very long time. The book also offers insights into impactful allyship and to the threads of queer community, even before the full flood of modern civil rights movements.
We learn first of Nordstrom’s childhood, which “was magical. Until it wasn’t.” Her parents divorced contentiously in 1918, and Ursula was sent to boarding school. Despite her unhappiness through most of her school days, her love of reading eventually landed her a job as a file clerk at Harper & Brothers, first in the College Textbooks department and then in the new Boys and Girls Department.
Nordstrom nurtured a curiosity about prospective new authors and helped them find their own voices and truths. An editor can sometimes see the bigger picture that an author can’t, we learn, but also “Sometimes a great editor knows when to leave well enough alone.” And we see Nordstrom make mistakes and learn from them.
The heart of the book is organized around chapters each devoted to the story of bringing one of her heralded books to press, and to Nordstrom’s personal relationships with the authors. Throughout, we see Nordstrom take risks to support her authors, even when this butted up against prevailing wisdom about what made a “good” children’s book. Nordstrom had no interest in the idealized, moralizing tales that had been the norm; instead, she sought “good books for bad children.” Among other things, she championed Black authors and their stories of Black youth, was friends with and editor of numerous other queer authors, and supported books that celebrated gender creativity or that explored or hinted at same-sex relationships.
Hudgins is clear about Nordstrom’s queerness without centering the book around it. Both Nordstrom and her author Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon) were in relationships with women, the book tells us, but explains that this wasn’t something that people were public about in the 1940s and 50s. Nordstrom was in a relationship with Mary Griffin, the manager of Harper’s Advertising Department, and the two supported each other through sickness and health for more than 40 years, though, the book says. (My only quibble is that while Hudgins appropriately describes Griffith as “tall, smart, sweet,” and mentions her professional accomplishments, she describes Brown’s partners merely by their age gaps: Brown “was with a woman twenty years older than she was” and then with a man “several years younger than she was.” It’s unclear why that information is relevant here; I would rather have learned something about who the people actually were.)
We see how Nordstrom’s friendship with Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) included meeting each other’s partners, and how she encouraged and published lesbian writer Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy, which “includes nods to kids who have different gender expressions.” Nordstrom later published and championed Charlotte Zolotow’s William’s Doll, one of the earliest books to celebrate a gender-creative boy.
Nordstrom had also been wanting to publish a book that would “give a hint” that same-sex romance could exist. In 1968, she was contacted by John Donovan (whom she knew was gay) about his novel I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip. She not only edited it, but helped pave the way for what she knew would be a controversial publication, by getting psychiatrists, medical doctors, and clergy to write supportive blurbs for the back cover. in 1969, shortly before the Stonewall Riots, it became the first young adult novel to clearly show a same-sex relationship. “Once again, she had edited and published a book in which some young people could see themselves,” the book observes.
And while Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen, which she also edited, was not an LGBTQ-inclusive title, it was also condemned by some because it showed an innocently naked boy on a couple of pages. Nordstrom fought to champion the title. Hudgins devotes an entire chapter to the controversy and to informing readers about the constitutional right to freedom of expression. She notes that the book was successfully challenged, with pants drawn onto the character, as recently as 2024.
Hudgins concludes that Nordstrom was a “risk-taker” and a “staunch defender of creative expression,” but importantly, “did it all while making a profit for Harper”—an observation that today’s publishers would be wise to note.
Interstitial pages and spreads include “Writing Tips from Ursula,” ways to “Be Like Ursula,” information on the American Library Association’s various book awards, and more.
This is an exceptional, timely, and highly recommended biography that conveys its subject’s significance and relevance through lively prose and astute observations. It’s a must-have for any middle grade bookshelf today; even older readers may find it interesting and valuable.
For a biography of Nordstrom aimed at younger readers, try the excellent picture book Good Books for Bad Children: The Genius of Ursula Nordstrom.
