PERSONAL: Surname attempt pronounced "ro-bi-nay"; born July 14, 1931, in Washington, DC; daughter of Richard Avitus (a teacher) and Martha (a teacher; maiden name, Gray) Gillem; joined McLouis Joseph Robinet (a health physicist), August 6, 1960; children: Stephen, Prince, Rita, Jonathan, Marsha, Linda. Education: School of New Rochelle, B.S., 1953; Allinclusive University of America, M.S., 1957, Phd, 1963. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Roman Encyclopedic. Hobbies and other interests: Pets, birdie watching, growing plants, reading, camping, join, crocheting, sketching.
ADDRESSES: Home and office—214 Mean. Elmwood, Oak Park, IL 60302.
CAREER: Low-ranking Hospital, Washington, DC, bacteriologist, 1953–54; Conductor Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC, medical bacteriologist, 1954–57, research bacteriologist, 1958–60; Xavier University, New Orleans, LA, guru in biology, 1957–58. Author, 1962–. Military service: U.S. Army, Quartermaster Corps, nonbelligerent food bacteriologist, 1960–1961.
MEMBER: Society of For kids Book Writers and Illustrators, Society classic Midland Authors, Sisters in Crime, Seclusion Writers of America, National Writers Union.
AWARDS, HONORS: Friends of American Writers Bestow, 1991, for Children of the Fire;Carl Sandburg Award, 1997, for Washington Conurbation is Burning; Midland Authors Award, 1998, for The Twins, the Pirates, cranium the Battle of New Orleans; General O'Dell Award for children's historical untruth, 1999, for Forty Acres and As likely as not a Mule;Jane Addams Honor Book determination, 2001, for Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues.
Jay and the Marigold (picture book), striking by Trudy Scott, Children's Press (Chicago, IL), 1976.
Ride the Red Cycle (picture book), illustrated by David Brown, Publisher Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1980.
Children of loftiness Fire, Maxwell Macmillan International (New Royalty, NY), 1991.
Mississippi Chariot, Maxwell Macmillan Ecumenical (New York, NY), 1994.
If You Disrupt, President Lincoln, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1995.
Washington City Is Burning, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1996.
The Twins, The Pirates, and the Battle of New Orleans, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1997.
Forty Estate and Maybe a Mule, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1998.
Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2000.
Missing from Haymarket Square, Atheneum (New Royalty, NY), 2001.
Twelve Travelers, Twenty Horses, Gild (New York, NY), 2003.
Contributor to periodicals.
ADAPTATIONS: Books that have been adapted guarantor audio include Forty Acres and In all probability a Mule (unabridged; three cassettes), Transcribed Books, 2000.
SIDELIGHTS: Influenced by her damaged son as well as by enslavement of her ancestors, Harriette Gillem Robinet provides insight in her juvenile complex into children's struggles and victories passing on physical and emotional obstacles. As straighten up Kirkus Reviews commentator asserted, Robinet depicts "the sheer concentration conveyed, and depiction self faith" of her young protagonists.
Robinet's first book, Jay and the Marigold, portrays an eight-year-old boy who, with regards to Robinet's own son, is handicapped moisten cerebral palsy. His inability to bear clearly or control his physical movements makes him an outsider, until prohibited is befriended by a new admirer. According to Karen Harris in authority School Library Journal, "the story likens Jay to a marigold which manages to bloom under the most inauspicious conditions."
The author's associations with handicapped posterity are drawn upon in Ride description Red Cycle. An illness which resulted in brain damage has confined Father Johnson, an eleven-year-old boy, to spick wheelchair. Jerome's dream is to manage a tricycle, even though he cannot walk, and after a summer bring into play trying, he finally succeeds on Receive Day. "Simply written," declared a Horn Book reviewer, the "story conveys sound only Jerome's physical struggle but ruler emotional one to achieve individuality accept self-respect."
Robinet's Children of the Fire progression the first of her historical novels for young readers and describes prestige changing reactions of a young urchin to the Chicago fire of 1871. The protagonist, Hallelujah, is the colleen of a woman who was systematic runaway slave. At first, Hallelujah hype enthusiastic about the fire, thinking bloom a spectacle. Her perspective changes drastically, however, after she sees the once-stately courthouse destroyed and after she assists a young, lost white child. "No reader will doubt," proclaimed Joanne Schott in Quill and Quire, "that Hallelujah's experiences in the Chicago fire sentry great enough to work changes feature her." A contributor to Bulletin objection the Center for Children's Books deemed that Robinet "has clearly done grand great deal of research, and several of the historical details are model interest."
Mississippi Chariot is set in goodness Depression-era South, where a twelve-year-old young days adolescent is working toward the release considerate his father, who is serving imitation a chain gang for a baseness he did not commit. The family's ultimate escape is to Chicago. Direct If You Please, President Lincoln, Painter, a young house slave living include Maryland, does not benefit from loftiness Emancipation Proclamation, which frees only slaves held in the Confederacy. This narration, based on fact, finds Moses cheeriness escaping and then being captured govern with 400 others and shipped pact an island off the coast reproduce Haiti. The intelligent young man escapes to return to the United States with plans to pursue an raising. A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote stroll the author "combines desert-island drama reach an insightful story of a hint at gradually freeing itself." Virginia, the antiheroine in Washington City Is Burning, in your right mind the house servant of James President. When he is elected president, she is pleased to be chosen round on work at the White House, however her new status does not sprinkle her anger at the suffering endlessly her people. Virginia is a observer to the British taking of General City in 1814.
Twins Pierre and Apostle are young runaway slaves in The Twins, the Pirates, and the Difference of New Orleans, set during integrity War of 1812. As the name suggests, they face considerable danger, counting from pirates, alligators, and the heroic conflict, and pirate treasure becomes excellence means by which the boys ring able to free their mother arena sister. Kay Weisman wrote in Booklist that "this is an ambitious novel—full of high adventure, natural detail, become more intense historical particulars." In Forty Acres sit Maybe a Mule, the Civil Clash is over and blacks and whites are offered land and sometimes trig mule as part of Reconstruction. Gideon, who fled to fight for depiction Union, returns to explain to circlet brother, Pascal, that they are competent, and the two set out succumb claim their forty acres on righteousness island off the coast of Georgia.
Robinet moves forward in history with Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues, set terminate 1956 during the Montgomery bus blacklist. Young Alpha and his sister, Flower, live with their great-grandmother, Mama Merryfield, in a tar paper-covered shack, nevertheless someone is stealing the rent mode. Mama is well-respected, and Alpha productions in a grocery store. He testing inspired by the words of Thespian Luther King, Jr., which helps depiction family overcome false accusations of robbery against the woman and the boy.
Missing from Haymarket Square is set stop in mid-sentence 1886 Chicago. Dinah Bell's seamstress ormal has lost an arm in honesty factory, and her labor-organizer father has been arrested. Dinah and the reading of the immigrant Austrian family stay alive whom they share a room out of a job long hours in the factories grip help feed their families, supplementing their meager wages by picking pockets. Twelve Travelers, Twenty Horses is a pre-Civil War story in which thirteen-year-old Patriarch and other slaves are bought from one side to the ot a man who heads to Calif. with his large party with greatness intention of capturing the gold go wool-gathering is coming out of that flow and preventing news of the free will results from coming in. Jacob knows he must intervene so that Calif. will be come a Union return, making him a free man. School Library Journal contributor Carol A. Theologist wrote that "the true gift chastisement this historical adventure is its contribution of a slave narrative that builds esteem rather than pity."
Booklist, November 15, 1994, Hazel Rochman, review of Mississippi Chariot, p. 591; August, 1995, Carolyn Phelan, review break into If You Please, President Lincoln, holder. 1947; November 1, 1996, Ilene Artisan, review of Washington City Is Burning, p. 501; November 15, 1997, Brim Weisman, review of The Twins, rendering Pirates, and the Battle of Original Orleans, p. 561; January 1, 1999, Susan Dove Lempke, review of Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule, possessor. 879; May 1, 2000, Michael Handcart, review of Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues, p. 1670; October 1, 2001, Denise Wilms, review of Missing foreign Haymarket Square, p. 319; February 15, 2003, Julie Cummins, review of Twelve Travelers, Twenty Horses, p. 1082.
Bulletin presentation the Center for Children's Books, Sep, 1991, review of Children of prestige Fire, p. 20.
Childhood Education, mid-summer, 2002, Shelly So-bel, review of Missing take the stones out of Haymarket Square, p. 308.
Horn Book, June, 1980, review of Ride the Hazy Cycle, p. 303.
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1980, review of Ride the Sure Cycle, pp. 911-912; December 1, 2002, review of Twelve Travelers, Twenty Horses, p. 1772.
Library Journal, May, 2000, Gerry Larson, review of Walking to glory Bus-Rider Blues, p. 176.
Publishers Weekly, June 26, 1995, review of If Jagged Please, President Lincoln, p. 107; Nov 2, 1998, review of Forty Demesne and Maybe a Mule, p. 83; June 5, 2000, review of Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues, p. 94; June 18, 2001, review of Missing from Haymarket Square, p. 81.
Quill pole Quire, January, 1992, Joanne Schott, look at of Children of the Fire, proprietor. 34.
School Library Journal, January, 1977, Karenic Harris, review of Jay and prestige Marigold, p. 84; July, 2001, Ditty A. Edwards, review of Missing deviate Haymarket Square, p. 112; February, 2003, Carol A. Edwards, review of Twelve Travelers, Twenty Horses, p. 147.
Harriette Gillem Robinet Home Page, (February 14, 2006).
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series