For nearly a half-century, from the 1920s to the early 1970s, Lois Lenski wrote and illustrated books for American children and interpreted these children for others around the globe with what one critic termed "a refreshing and tasteful realism." In addition to writing and illustrating nearly a hundred books of her own, she illustrated more than fifty children's books by other authors. One of the most productive of American authors for children from preschool to preteen years, she became known, admired, and loved by thousands of children, parents, teachers, and librarians in the United States and throughout the world. Two of Lenski's historical novels were Newbery Honor Books, and she won the Newbery Medal for one of her regional books, a genre in which she became an acknowledged pioneer. Many of her books have been translated into African, Asian, European, and Latin American languages. Her venturing into previously taboo areas of content in the 1940s prompted some outbursts of criticism and censorship, which have been forgotten in contrast to the continued undermining of similar taboos in children's books of the 1960s and 1970s.
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