Katharine Holabird
| Katharine Holabird | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 23, 1948 Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Francis W. Parker School |
| Alma mater | Bennington College |
| Notable works | Angelina Ballerina |
| Website | |
| katharineholabird |
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Katharine Holabird (born January 23, 1948) is an American writer, best known as the author of the Angelina Ballerina series and Twinkle.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the second of four daughters, Holabird grew up in an artistic home in Chicago, and her family spent many summers in Michigan. In 1969, she received a B.A. in literature from Bennington College in Vermont and then worked at Bennington College as a literary editor for a year after her graduation.
Holabird then found herself in Italy as a freelance journalist where she met her husband, Michael Haggiag. The two married in 1974 and moved to London, where she continued to write and worked at a nursery school. She has two daughters, Tara and Alexandra. Later, Holabird met Helen Craig, a London photographer and artist whose illustrations have been inspired by her childhood in rural England. Over the next few years, Craig illustrated several mini-books with mice, and Holabird provided some of the text. In 1983, her third child, Adam, was born.
In 1983, Holabird's first children’s book, Angelina Ballerina, was published. Her son Adam was her inspiration for the character Henry, and Angelina’s character was inspired by her daughters’ love for dressing up and dancing. Holabird wrote the first draft of Angelina Ballerina at the kitchen table with her daughters dancing around her. In fact, the Angelina books were originally about a girl, but then Craig drew a mouse, and Holabird loved it. “The impulsive character of Angelina came alive,” says Holabird, “and seemed to pirouette off the page with enthusiasm and energy, while her plump and ebullient body expressed drama and attitude in every twitch of her tail.” Angelina is a very emotional character; she is sensitive and often bursts into tears right before offering an apology. She struggles with her conscience but always ends up doing the right thing—which is very familiar to many young children. The universal childhood themes in Angelina include friendship, jealousy, loyalty, & dedication. As a child, she was an avid reader who loved fairy tales and stories about heroic animals, and she frequently saw ballets like Cinderella and Swan Lake with her grandmother. The young, imaginative Holabird loved animals, playing in her tree house, and dancing with her sisters. When reflecting on her childhood, she said: “TV hadn’t become a fixture in every home, and we created our own imaginative world.” She graduated high school from the Francis Parker School in realistically portray the difficulties of growing up. According to Holabird, it is a ballerina book for “all the passionate little dancers and performers in the world,” including her own two daughters, which is why she “decided to explore the impulsive, highly emotional character of a small but determined ballerina.”
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