Born:  October 11, 1929 in San Francisco, California

Parents:  Louis N. Freedman (publisher’s representative) and Irene Gordon Freedman (actress)

Father was an awesome storyteller: “The problem was, we never knew for sure whether the stories he told were fiction of nonfiction” (Freedman, Newbery Medal acceptance speech, Horn Book, 1988)

Writers such as John Steinbeck, William Saroyan, and John Masefield were all dinner guests in Freedman’s house

Education:  San Jose State College (now University), 1947-49; University of California, Berkley, B.A., 1951

Likes:  Travel, photography, filmmaking

Memberships:  Authors Guild, PEN, and Society of Children’s Book Writers

1951-53:  Korea, U. S. Army- Counter Intelligence Corps

1953-56:  Association Press, San Francisco, California- reporter and editor

1956-60:  J. Walter Thompson Company (advertising agency), New York- publicity writer for TV

1961-63:  Columbia University Press, New York- associate staff member of Columbia Encyclopedia

1964-65:  Crowell-Collier Educational Corporation- editor

1961-??:  freelance writer

1969-86:  New School for Social Research (now New School University)- writing workshop instructor

Pioneered the photobiography format of nonfiction; first used in Lincoln:  a Photobiography

Started writing about animals and behavior in the late sixties

Shifted from animals to humans in 1980; attended a photographic exhibit at the new York Historical Society and was struck by the photographs of children in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.  “What impressed me most of all was the way that those old photographs seemed to defy the passage of time” (Freedman, Horn Book article)

Most known for biographical work; upon being asked by James Cross Giblin on his reasons for writing nonfiction for children: “A writer of books for children has an impact on readers’ minds and imaginations that very few writers for adults can match.  But beyond that, writing nonfiction for children gives me, or any writer, tremendous artistic freedom.  I can write about almost any subject that interests me and that I believe will interest a child.  I can be a generalist rather than a specialist….  It’s a much greater challenge to convey the spirit and essence of a life in a hundred pages than to write a 600- or 800- page ‘definitive’ tome that includes every known detail about that life.  A nonfiction children’s book requires concision, selection, judgment, lucidity, unwavering focus, and the most artful use of language and storytelling techniques.  I regard such books as a specialized and demanding art form.” (Horn Book)