Ella Enchanted
Gail Carson Levine
“Reading was more important to me when I was a kid than anything in the world” (“Gail Carson Levine Shares Magic”, 2008).
Gail Carson Levine was born in the 1950s, and grew up in Manhattan, New York. Levine describes growing up among diverse cultures. In an interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith (2006), she describes her Washington Heights neighborhood being “a haven for refugees from Hitler, and German was spoken on the streets as often as English”. In her household, Levine felt their was a lack of privacy. She shared a room with her older sister, in which they did not get along very well. Books were her refuge, and Levine stated she often spent “hours reading in the bathroom and we only had one bathroom” (Smith, 2000).
While finding adventure in the city and books she loved, Levine began to write her own stories, acted in plays, and painted. When asked about her favorite book, Levine certainly loved to read children’s books. Joan Abelove, Lucy Frank, Karen Romano Young, Virginia Euwer Wolff, Doris Orgel, and Suzanne Fisher Staples are just a few. Her passion for writing did not begin until she entered college. Levine majored in Philosophy at the City College of New York, in which she found the degree to be “a useless major for a future writer” (“Biography of Gail Carson Levine”, n.d.). After graduating from college, she went on to work for the New York State government, and mainly in jobs that focused on welfare.
In 1987, Levine decided to change focus in her career and return to her true passion: writing. Of course with every writer’s journey, they encounter many failures. For nine years, Levine struggling was in getting her manuscripts, mostly picture books, accepted. However, she remained positive. “In fact, those years were some of my happiest. I was learning to write. I was meeting other writers. I was making friends” (Smith, 2006).
Her life changed when on April 17, 1996, not one, but two publishers were wanting to publish Ella Enchanted. HarperCollins published the book in 1997 and it became a huge sensation.
Gail Carson Levine continues to write to this day. After Ella, Levine wrote Dave at Night in 1999, in which is a historical fiction novel that she wrote in tribute to her father. Returning back to fantasy fiction for children, Levine has written books about princess and fairy novels, as well as two picture books. In 2006, she decided to talk, teach, and write about writing, so Levine published a nonfiction book title Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly. It has become a huge hit with writing students, and she published two more books about writing.
Gail Carson Levine has become an accomplished writer, but she will always come back to her love of reading. Remembering back to the days when she lived in a small apartment, and sharing a bedroom with her sister, Levine states “I shared a bedroom with my sister, and reading was the most private place. I wonder if kids understand that and can be enticed into reading through the joy of an experience that’s so personal” (“Gail Carson Levine Shares Her Magic”, 2008). To this day, Levine still reads children’s books and teaches a writing workshops for children (“Gail Carson Levine FAQ”, n.d.).