Barbara Park

Barbara Lynne Park (née Tidswell; April 21, 1947 – November 15, 2013) was an American author of children's books. She is most well known for writing the Junie B. Jones series of chapter books. She has also written several middle grade and young adult books, including Skinnybones, Mick Harte Was Here (1995), and The Graduation of Jake Moon (2000). Park's works frequently visit themes of familial relationships and children's experiences in school, and she based characters on her children and her own childhood memories. Park did not allow adaptations of her works except for stage plays.

Originally intending to become a high school teacher, Park abandoned the idea after an unpleasant semester as a student teacher. She moved across the country as her husband traveled for Air Force training before they settled in Arizona. Her first manuscript, Skinnybones, was accepted by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc in 1981. Don't Make Me Smile, another manuscript she had prepared, became her first book published by Knopf the same year. She began writing Junie B. Jones in 1992, which proved highly popular, and she continued writing the series for the rest of her life. She became active in advocacy for the use of bicycle helmets after a child died of a bicycle accident in her neighborhood in 1993, and this made up the plot of Mick Harte Was Here. She died of ovarian cancer in 2013.

Childhood Barbara Lynne Tidswell was born in Mount Holly, New Jersey, on April 21, 1947. Her father was Brooke Tidswell Jr, a banker, the local board of education president, and the owner of a home improvement store. Her mother, Doris Tidswell, was a high school library secretary. She had a brother, also named Brooke, who was two years older than her; he went on to become mayor of Mount Holly. Tidswell described her younger self as a tattletale—especially against her brother—and would tell on people so they learn their lesson "for their own good". She hoped to be on the television show The Mickey Mouse Club. In her final semester at Alabama University, Tidswell worked in a seventh-grade history and geography classroom as a student teacher. She was given no guidance by the teacher she was training under and found the experience unpleasant. In one instance, Tidswell was responsible for the class on her own; the classroom became rowdy while she was running a geography bee, and she was too afraid to respond when the office asked about the noise over the intercom. After her experiences as a student teacher, she lost interest in the profession.

Tidswell graduated in 1969 with a bachelor's degree. (Park's degree has been described as a bachelor's of education She decided that she would try writing for two years, and if it did not work for her, then she would get a master's degree in counseling.) After having her work rejected by newspapers and magazines, she earned her first sale when Hallmark Cards published her caption in a greeting card. She realized that she wanted to write children's book after reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.

The first children's book Park sent to publishers was Operation: Dump the Chump. She wrote her final Junie B. Jones book, Turkeys We Have Loved and Eaten (and Other Thankful Stuff), in 2012.

Later life and death Park was private and did not seek celebrity status, though she sometimes met children through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Over the course of her career, she won many Parents' Choice and Students' Choice awards. Park refused to allow adaptations of her work outside of stage plays because she wished to be involved with any adaptation personally, and plays were the only type she felt she had time for. She licensed Junie B. Jones to Imagination Stage and TheatreWorksUSA, where she participated in creating stage adaptations of her stories. She once tried to have Beanpole turned into a television series, but this was unsuccessful.

Park's sons Steven and David went on to become a United States Border Patrol agent and a lawyer, respectively, and she became a grandmother with the birth of David's son in 2005. Park was afflicted with ovarian cancer, which she had for approximately seven years. She and her husband founded a nonprofit for women with ovarian cancer, Sisters in Survival. She died on November 15, 2013, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Style and themes Park drew from her experiences as a mother and her semester as a student teacher when describing children and classroom environments, and she used memories of her own mindset as a child when developing the personalities of her characters. The children in her first book, Operation: Dump the Chump, were directly inspired by her two sons. Park's portrayal of parents in her works reflected her own family life. She was raised in a supportive home and never saw her parents fight, and this held true for all of her characters. Family relationships are a common theme across most of Park's works.

As part of her writing process, Park kept paper, pencil, and flashlight on her nightstand to write down ideas in the middle of the night. She did not write out detailed plots before she began writing, instead working "by the seat of [her] pants". She found the initial writing process difficult and got more enjoyment on working through rewrites and refinement. Park's primary literary influences were J.D. Salinger and Judy Blume. Blume in turn complimented the Junie B. Jones series and has sometimes been mistaken as their writer because of her similar style and her name's resemblance to Junie B.

Park developed a reputation for dealing with serious subject matter in a lighthearted way. Across her books, characters frequently find themselves in embarrassing situations around other children. In books like Don't Make Me Smile and The Kid in the Red Jacket, she portrayed children expressing their worries by talking through them. She rejected the idea that children's books must always teach morals, instead seeing simple entertainment as a legitimate purpose for a children's book. When the child characters do learn from their actions, Park has them do so on their own instead of having an adult explain things to them.