Barbara Wersba Biography

This Study Guide consists of approximately 11 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Carnival in My Mind.

Barbara Wersba Biography

This Study Guide consists of approximately 11 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Carnival in My Mind.
This section contains 537 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy The Carnival in My Mind Short Guide

In 1932, on August 19, Barbara Wersba was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her paternal grandfather was a Russian Jew who immigrated to the United States at the turn of the century, winding up in Harlem, when Harlem was a white middle-class neighborhood. While the family grew prosperous, they still found themselves the subjects of anti-Semitic attitudes. Wersba's father married a woman from Florida outside the Jewish faith, and the two had a long but vitriolic marriage. The prejudices against the Jewish religion, and Wersba's parent's fights, have had a large influence on the empathy she feels toward her characters.

As a child, Wersba often played by herself. She dressed somberly, and spent her days daydreaming, writing poetry, and making up plays for her dolls to perform. She dreamed of becoming a poet, or a dancer, or an actress—anything to take her away from the...

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This section contains 537 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy The Carnival in My Mind Short Guide
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