"Growing up in a rather limited, narrow environment," Zilpha Keatley Snyder writes in Innocence & Experience: Essays & Conversations on Children's Literature, "I escaped through books and games into a much wider world. I loved almost any kind...

* SNYDER, Zilpha Keatley. The Unseen. 208p. Delacorte. Apr. 2004. Tr $15.95. ISBN 0-385-73084-5; PLB $17.99. ISBN 0-385-90106-2. LC number unavailable. Gr 5-8--Xandra Hobson likes to escape from her family, where she feels like a complete failure in the company of geniuses,...

192p. CIP. Delacorte. Oct. 2002. Tr $15.95. ISBN 0-385-32767-6; PLB $17.99. ISBN 0-385-90064-3. LC 2002000848. Gr 5-8--The Hamiltons have just moved to Timber City. The family's introduction to the town is the July Fourth picnic at Rathburn Park. It is there that...

In her books, Below The Root and And All Between, Zilpha K. Snyder chooses to examine man's inhumanity to fellow man arising out of the abuse of power…. In her sequel And All Between, Snyder attempts an interesting literary experiment. The same story told in the first book is now told from the point of view of [a different character]…. The first reaction to the technique is "what an easy way to write a second novel," but a fairer assessment of Snyder's attempt to pr...

Until the Celebration, the final book in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's "Greensky" science fiction trilogy, is the least successful of the three. Below the Root, the first book of the trilogy, presented an imaginative and convincing future society with a strong focus on three Kindar young people…. And All Between, the second volume, retold the story of the first book from the viewpoint of Teera, the Erdling girl—an interesting innovation, but one that was not entirely successful....

In a succession of distinguished books, Zilpha Keatley Snyder has been exploring the nature of magic, not only for the benefit of children, one feels, but to satisfy herself—which is, of course, how all good books are written. Invariably at the center of her magic is an oddball—a highly individual, nonconforming, compelling character, so inventive … as to suggest that magic lies within the power of imagination itself. (p. 8) With each book the pattern of Mrs. Snyder's magic becom...