Michael O. Tunnell
Author of Mailing May
About the Author
Michael O. Tunnell is a professor of children's literature and the author of Mailing May, The Children of Topaz, Wishing Moon, and other books. He lives in Orem, Utah.
Image credit: via Charlesbridge
Series
Works by Michael O. Tunnell
The Prydain Companion: A Reference Guide to Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles (1989) 142 copies, 4 reviews
The Children of Topaz: The Story of a Japanese-American Internment Camp Based on a Classroom Diary (1996) 90 copies, 4 reviews
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1950
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Brigham Young University (EdD|1986)
- Occupations
- professor
children's author
nonfiction author - Organizations
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Brigham Young University - Short biography
- I taught children's literature at Brigham Young University for many years and have written several books about literature for young readers, including The Story of Ourselves: Teaching History Through Children's Literature and Children's Literature, Briefly. Twice I helped choose the Newbery Medal winner, the most prestigious of children's book awards. My wife, Glenna, and I live in Orem, Utah. We have four grown children and nine grandchildren. We love to travel the world when we can and, in the last few years, have been to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Japan, New Zealand, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, England, and Italy. [from: Website]
- Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Orem, Utah, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Utah, USA
Members
Discussions
girl sent to her grandmother's by US mail in Name that Book (June 2016)
Reviews
Great minds think alike. So, it seems, to mediocre minds. At least, they all have the same idea at the same time.
Lloyd Alexander's works have not received the critical attention of, say, J. R. R. Tolkien's, but his award-winning Chronicles of Prydain have remained in print for fifty years, and you'll still see him mentioned in occasional works of scholarship in journals such as Mythlore. But the Really Big Year of Alexander scholarship seems to have been 1991, when Jill P. May published show more Lloyd Alexander in the Twayne's United States Authors series and Jacobs and Tunnell published Lloyd Alexander, the first in Greenwood Press's Bio-Biblography series.
I truly have no idea why 1991 was so full of Alexandrine writings, but the two books are very different. May engages in a lot of literary criticism, to the detriment of biography, but her book is a unified whole. Jacobs and Tunnell have a different method: A 36 page (counting footnotes) biography, then an much longer annotated bibliography broken into sections: first Alexander's own works (classified into adult books; books for younger readers; translations by Alexander from French; Alexander's own works published in other countries, usually but not always in translation; and sundry other works), then works about Alexander by other authors (biographical material, scholarly works, book reviews, etc.). This is useful (I would never have guessed that Prydain would be translated into thirteen foreign languages but not Welsh!) but of course now dated, and the number of typos seems a little bit on the high side -- not extremely bad, but enough to make me worry a little. Plus the classification system would work better if there were page headings to make it clearer what section you're examining. And, of course, it's not something you're going to read for fun!
The biography is more interesting but slightly disquieting. There are ninety footnotes (i.e. not quite three per page). Of those ninety, 78 are taken directly from Alexander himself (mostly in interviews or letters; a few from items Alexander sent to magazines). Three are from his wife. Six are letters either to or from his primary editor. That leaves just three -- a primary school record, a contract, and one which is just information about one of the books Alexander reworked in his writings! No conversations with friends. No conversation with his agent. No consultation of his college or military records or his co-workers during his brief periods of having real work. It's not really a biography; it's an organized set of reminiscences.
Does it matter? I'm not sure. If someone were to write a real biography of Alexander, all that conversational material would surely help. And it does give a feeling for Alexander's personality and his quirks. But I can't think it's a complete picture. (This apart from the fact that he lived for another sixteen years after the book was written.) Let's just say that, if this were a Wikipedia article, it would be full of "Citation needed" and "Additional information required" sorts of flags. show less
Lloyd Alexander's works have not received the critical attention of, say, J. R. R. Tolkien's, but his award-winning Chronicles of Prydain have remained in print for fifty years, and you'll still see him mentioned in occasional works of scholarship in journals such as Mythlore. But the Really Big Year of Alexander scholarship seems to have been 1991, when Jill P. May published show more Lloyd Alexander in the Twayne's United States Authors series and Jacobs and Tunnell published Lloyd Alexander, the first in Greenwood Press's Bio-Biblography series.
I truly have no idea why 1991 was so full of Alexandrine writings, but the two books are very different. May engages in a lot of literary criticism, to the detriment of biography, but her book is a unified whole. Jacobs and Tunnell have a different method: A 36 page (counting footnotes) biography, then an much longer annotated bibliography broken into sections: first Alexander's own works (classified into adult books; books for younger readers; translations by Alexander from French; Alexander's own works published in other countries, usually but not always in translation; and sundry other works), then works about Alexander by other authors (biographical material, scholarly works, book reviews, etc.). This is useful (I would never have guessed that Prydain would be translated into thirteen foreign languages but not Welsh!) but of course now dated, and the number of typos seems a little bit on the high side -- not extremely bad, but enough to make me worry a little. Plus the classification system would work better if there were page headings to make it clearer what section you're examining. And, of course, it's not something you're going to read for fun!
The biography is more interesting but slightly disquieting. There are ninety footnotes (i.e. not quite three per page). Of those ninety, 78 are taken directly from Alexander himself (mostly in interviews or letters; a few from items Alexander sent to magazines). Three are from his wife. Six are letters either to or from his primary editor. That leaves just three -- a primary school record, a contract, and one which is just information about one of the books Alexander reworked in his writings! No conversations with friends. No conversation with his agent. No consultation of his college or military records or his co-workers during his brief periods of having real work. It's not really a biography; it's an organized set of reminiscences.
Does it matter? I'm not sure. If someone were to write a real biography of Alexander, all that conversational material would surely help. And it does give a feeling for Alexander's personality and his quirks. But I can't think it's a complete picture. (This apart from the fact that he lived for another sixteen years after the book was written.) Let's just say that, if this were a Wikipedia article, it would be full of "Citation needed" and "Additional information required" sorts of flags. show less
Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift's "Chocolate Pilot" (Junior Library Guild Selection) by Michael O. Tunnell
Here's an aspect of post WW2 that I never heard about, food and supply drops on Berlin, but especially candy drops for the children. Lt. Gail Halvorsen comes up with the idea of dropping candy from his C-54 after meeting several hungry children in Berlin. Candy is a scarce commodity in wartime and especially now with the Soviets trying to keep food deliveries from taking place. The idea takes off like gangbusters. What's wonderful about his story is not just the generosity but that Lt. show more Halvorsen is still very active, still flying, and still in touch with the people whose lives he touched over 50 years ago. Great non-fiction for kids and not just because of the idea of candy. show less
The Prydain Companion: A Reference Guide to Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles by Michael O. Tunnell
It is both the power and the weakness of great books like Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain that they make you want to know all there is to know about them. The greatness, because it causes you to look more deeply at the books. The weakness, because of course there is so much to remember that it is hard to track it all.
Enter this book. It takes almost all proper nouns in the Chronicles and gives their background -- primarily in the Prydain-universe, but it also gives some background on show more how Alexander came to use the names and ideas he did, plus there are references to the parts of the Mabinogion which inspired the Chronicles.
If there is one weakness in these books, it lies there. All references are to Lady Charlotte Guest's edition of the Mabinogion -- but, although this is the translation Alexander used, it is not the best -- plus citations are to a particular edition, and my edition of Guest, at least, does not match that pagination. I would have been much happier with the book if it had also cited one of the more modern, correct translations of the Mabinogion, and found a better way to do so.
And I wish that author Tunnell had made a greater effort to link Prydain with the real Wales -- he never mentions, e.g., that the Great Avren is the Severn. That link is obvious, but how many other connections do we miss in a casual reading?
If space was an issue, we could surely have dispensed with the plot summaries of the various Prydain stories. After all, no one is going to read this book without reading the Chronicles -- for one thing, it gives away all the endings!
Plus I wish Tunnell had used some mythological references other than Graves's The White Goddess, which has a lot more Graves in it than genuine mythology.
These are not nitpicks; they are genuine weaknesses in the books that might be corrected in a revised edition. Still, there is no substitute for this book, and I do not hesitate to recommend it to all "Friends of the Companions." show less
Enter this book. It takes almost all proper nouns in the Chronicles and gives their background -- primarily in the Prydain-universe, but it also gives some background on show more how Alexander came to use the names and ideas he did, plus there are references to the parts of the Mabinogion which inspired the Chronicles.
If there is one weakness in these books, it lies there. All references are to Lady Charlotte Guest's edition of the Mabinogion -- but, although this is the translation Alexander used, it is not the best -- plus citations are to a particular edition, and my edition of Guest, at least, does not match that pagination. I would have been much happier with the book if it had also cited one of the more modern, correct translations of the Mabinogion, and found a better way to do so.
And I wish that author Tunnell had made a greater effort to link Prydain with the real Wales -- he never mentions, e.g., that the Great Avren is the Severn. That link is obvious, but how many other connections do we miss in a casual reading?
If space was an issue, we could surely have dispensed with the plot summaries of the various Prydain stories. After all, no one is going to read this book without reading the Chronicles -- for one thing, it gives away all the endings!
Plus I wish Tunnell had used some mythological references other than Graves's The White Goddess, which has a lot more Graves in it than genuine mythology.
These are not nitpicks; they are genuine weaknesses in the books that might be corrected in a revised edition. Still, there is no substitute for this book, and I do not hesitate to recommend it to all "Friends of the Companions." show less
Really fun book. I was surprised to read in the authors note that this story is in fact true! Tunnell admits that he embellished but that May was indeed shipped via post to her grandmother's home to make it affordable for her parents. The illustrations show an image for the scene taking place but also framed details that assist in the story line such as an up close picture of her tag or a 'photo' of her grandmother's house. It is odd to think that something like the post office is no longer show more something that children experience these days but not being able to afford to travel to relatives will always be so this can give a historical and inspirational look into that experience. Tunnell says in the authors note that despite all he learned about Idaho's railway and the post office that the most important think he took away from writing this book was "the wonderful, creative ways in which ordinary people solve difficult problems", which I find super insightful. show less
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