Aileen Fisher - Writing

Writing

According to Fisher, "Poetry is a rhythmical piece of writing that leaves the reader feeling that life is a little richer than before, a little more full of wonder, beauty, or just plain delight." And, despite the great variety found in her writing, she thought of herself primarily as a poet. "My first and chief love in writing is writing children's verse." The first work she sold, to Child Life magazine in 1927, was "Otherwise". This nine-line poem, opening "There must be magic, Otherwise, How could day turn into night?", has been reprinted in a number of anthologies and is still used in schools. Fisher continued to sell to poetry magazines after the publication of her first volume, The Coffee-Pot Face, in 1933. A collection of poems about everyday things like lady bugs, tummy aches and icicles, it was illustrated by her own silhouette drawings, and became a Junior Literary Guild Selection.

More than twenty poetry collections followed, including Up the Windy Hill: A Book of Merry Verses with Silhouettes, and You Don’t Look Like Your Mother, re-released in 2001. Her books have been illustrated by prominent artists including Eric Carle, Adrienne Adams, Symeon Shimin, and Mique Moriuchi. In 1991 Harper Collins published Always Wondering: Some Favorite Poems of Aileen Fisher, selected by the author from some of her most requested and anthologized pieces. I Heard a Bluebird Sing, is a posthumous collection of her poems chosen for inclusion by the votes of school children around the US, along with excerpts from interviews and articles she had written. Ms Fisher's poems continue to appear in anthologies and several of her collections have been re-released after her death, leading her to be included by one reviewer on a short list of "some of the luminaries in recent children's poetry".

Fisher wrote both rhyming and prose non-fiction books, many of them focusing on natural history. One of her personal favorites was Valley of the Smallest: The Life Story of the Shrew, which received the Western Writers of America Spur Award for juvenile non-fiction, was named a Hans Christian Andersen Honor Book, and placed on Horn Book Magazine's Best Books of the Year list. It follows the life of an adult masked shrew living, like Ms Fisher, in a valley in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Other award-winning natural history books include Feathered Ones and Furry, illustrated by Eric Carle; and In the Woods, In the Meadow, In the Sky.

Fisher published plays for children, frequently about holidays or with patriotic or historic themes. Some of these were written with other co-writers, including Olive Rabe. They also collaborated on biographies about Emily Dickinson and Louisa May Alcott.