The Frances Audio Collection by Russell Hoban - Audio Book CD
Brand New : 1 CD - 45 minutes
This collection includes four endearing favorites, Bedtime for Frances; A Baby Sister for Frances; Bread and Jam for Frances; and A Birthday for Frances. Children will cheer for Frances as she cleverly avoids her bedtime, stubbornly refuses to eat anything but bread and jam, and struggles not to eat the tempting, chocolatey birthday present she has just bought for her younger sister, Gloria. These reassuring and funny stories are just right for those amazing days of childhood!
About the Author Russell Hoban
Russell Conwell Hoban (born February 4, 1925) is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magic realism, poetry, and children's books who lives in England. Hoban was born in Lansdale, just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of two Jewish Ukrainian immigrants. He was named after Russell Conwell. After briefly attending Temple University, he enlisted in the Army at age 18 and served in the Philippines and Italy as a radio operator during World War II. During his military service, he married his first wife, Lillian Hoban (née Aberman), who later illustrated many of his books.
Russell Hoban then worked as an illustrator (painting several covers for TIME, Sports Illustrated, and The Saturday Evening Post) and an advertising copywriter—occupations which several of his characters later shared—before writing and illustrating his first children's book, What Does It Do and How Does It Work. "About the Artist" in the Macmillan Classics Edition of Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (second printing 1965), which Hoban illustrated, notes that he worked in advertising for Batten Barton Durstine & Osborn and that later he became the art director of J. Walter Thompson: "Heavy machinery later became subjects for his paintings, and this led him into the children's book field with the writing and illustrating of What Does It Do and How Does It Work? and The Atomic Submarine." That section on the artist points out also that at the time the book's illustrations were copyrighted, in 1964, Hoban was teaching drawing at the School of Visual Arts, in New York, collaborating with his first wife on their fifth children's book, and living in Connecticut.
Russell Hoban wrote exclusively for children for the next decade, and was best known for his series of short books starring Frances, a temperamental badger child, whose escapades were in part based on the experiences of his four children, Phoebe, Abrom, Esme and Julia, and their friends. The Mouse and His Child, a dark philosophical tale for older children, appeared in 1967 and was Russell Hoban's first full-length novel. In 1969, Hoban, his wife, and their children travelled to London, intending to stay only a short time. The marriage dissolved, and while the rest of the family returned to the United States, Russell Hoban remained in London and has resided there ever since. All of his adult novels except Riddley Walker, Pilgermann and Fremder are set in whole or part in contemporary London.
In 1971, Russell Hoban wrote a book employing concepts borrowed from "The Gift of the Magi" called Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas, which further reached fans through a 1977 special originally created for HBO by the Jim Henson Company. The book was illustrated by his then-wife, Lillian Hoban, whose drawn reditions of these characters were faithfully replicated by the Muppet creators. The story tells of a poor mother and son who do what they must to try to provide a special Christmas to one another, taking a route neither of them expected. The 1985 film Turtle Diary was adapted from his novel Turtle Diary by Harold Pinter.
Russell Hoban now lives with his second wife, Gundula Ahl; they have three children, one of whom is the composer Wieland Hoban, to whom Riddley Walker is dedicated. Wieland has set one of his father's texts in his piece Night Roads (1998-99). Russell Hoban is often described as a fantasy writer; only two of his novels, Turtle Diary and The Bat Tattoo, are entirely devoid of supernatural elements. However, the fantasy elements are usually presented as only moderately surprising developments in an otherwise realistic contemporary story, i.e. magic realism. Exceptions include Kleinzeit (a comic fantasy whose characters include Death, Hospital, and Underground), Riddley Walker (generally considered science fiction because of its futuristic though primitive setting), Pilgermann (a historical novel about the Crusades), and Fremder (a more recognisably science-fiction novel). Many of his novels could also be considered romances, following the development of a relationship between two characters who often take turns as narrators, bonding over some common obsession or artistic interest. There is frequent repetition of the same images and themes in different contexts: for instance, many of Russell Hoban's works refer to lions, Orpheus, Eurydice, Persephone, Vermeer, severed heads, heart disease, flickering, Odilon Redon, and King Kong. |
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