House Of Dies Drear

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "A hundred years ago, Dies Drear and two slaves he was hiding in his house, an Underground Railroad station in Ohio, had been murdered. The house, huge and isolated, was fascinating, Thomas thought, but he wasn't sure he was glad Papa had bought it--funny things kept happening, frightening things... The secret of the house is revealed in an exciting final sequence that maintains beautifully the mysterious and dramatic story of a black family caught in an atmosphere of fear and danger. Written with distinction, an imaginiative and imposing book."

A family tries to unravel the secrets of their new home which was once a stop on the Underground Railroad in this Edgar Award-winning book from Virginia Hamilton.

The house held secrets, Thomas knew, even before he first saw it looming gray and massive on its ledge of rock. It had a century-old legend--two fugitive slaves had been killed by bounty hunters after leaving its passageways, and Dies Drear himself, the abolitionist who had made the house into a station on the Underground Railroad, had been murdered there. The ghosts of the three were said to walk its rooms...

Born into a large family and raised on a farm in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Ms. Hamilton grew up listening to stories shared by her mother and father. While studying writing at the New School for Social Research in New York City, she met a young poet, Arnold Adoff, and the two were married in March 1960. In 1968, Ms. Hamilton's first book, Zeely (S&S, 0-02-742470-7; Aladdin, 0-689-71695-8. Ages 10 up), edited by Richard Jackson, was published; and she and her family (which now included her daughter Leigh and her son Jaime) moved back to Yellow Springs, building their home on land that had been in Ms. Hamilton's family for generations. Ms. Hamilton's second book, The House Of Dies Drear (S&S, 0-02-742500-2; Aladdin, 0-02-043520-7. Ages 12 up), was published in 1968 and won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best juvenile mystery. The success of these first two novels heralded a long and prolific career full of accolades and the most prestigious awards in children's literature.

Ms. Hamilton won the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1992 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in 1995 for her body of work. Also in 1995, Ms.Hamilton received a John D. and Catherine C. MacArthur Fellowship, presented to "talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits" and have demonstrated "exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work." She was the first African American to win the Newbery Medal, which was presented to her for M.C. Higgins, the Great (Aladdin, 0-02-043490-1; Aladdin, 0-689-71694-X; S&S, 0-689-83074-2. Ages 10 up). M.C. Higgins, the Great was also the first of only two books ever to win the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (Philomel/Penguin Putnam, 1982), The Planet Of Junior Brown (S&S, 0-02-742510-X; Aladdin, 0-689-71721-0; Aladdin, 0-02-043540-1), and In The Beginning: Creation Stories From Around The World (Harcourt, 1988) were all Newbery Honor books. Ms. Hamilton won the Coretta Scott King Award three times, and three times her books were selected as Coretta Scott King Award Honor books. Twice she won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction (for M.C. Higgins the Great and for Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush), while Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave (Knopf, 1988) won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Nonfiction. In 1996 the NAACP Image Award was presented to her for Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, And True Tales (Blue Sky Press/Scholastic, 1995). She was also a winner of the Regina Medal of the Catholic Library Association, and in 1984 an annual children's literature lecture was established in her name at Kent State University.

Ms. Hamilton's writing career spanned more than thirty years, during which time she was awarded every ma