Elizabeth Partridge is a woman of many talents. Not only has she published award-winning books for children, but she has also studied Chinese medicine and is a licensed acupuncturist. In 1974 she was the first person to graduate from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in women's studies.
Elizabeth's first book for children, Clara and the Hoodoo Man, was a book of fiction for younger readers. She has published many picture books, but her passion seems to lie in biographies. There is probably good reason for this, as the subject of her first biography, Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange was her godmother. Elizabeth's father, Ron Partridge, was Dorothea's assistant and Elizabeth reports her family spent most
of their holidays at Dorothea's house. She remembers Dorothea very well, but although Elizabeth admired and respected Dorothea she recalls as a child she kept her distance. Dorothea was "tough, difficult, extremely demanding. The closer you were the more she demanded. But she demanded the most from herself."
Elizabeth says she chose to write a biography about Dorothea because she had never known her as an adult. Elizabeth also had incredible access to others who knew Dorothea and to collections of her photos and proof sheets. Elizabeth explains that the biography "gave her a chance to look into Dorothea's life to see what made her what she was."
Following the awards and accolades for Restless Sprit, Elizabeth took time to create several picture book manuscripts. At the same time she and her editor at Viking Publishers began to search for another biographical subject they both wanted to work on. Elizabeth argues that "working on a long biography you have to be fascinated with the subject." She reports in such an undertaking the editor plays a critical role so you both have to be willing to spend time with the subject. When her editor suggested Woody Guthrie as a subject, Elizabeth wasn't sure that he was the right choice. Elizabeth recalls that she knew very little about Woody, just the opposite of her familiarity with Dorothea Lange. However, once she started researching Woody's life Elizabeth was hooked, as she found him fascinating. She reports, "He could take any situation and boil it down into a song."
This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie took Elizabeth three long years to complete. "I used to get frustrated and angry with him. Writing is very intense. You get into this translucent world as a writer. One world is your real world, the other is this translucent world where you're living in that other person's life." In Woody's case it was very difficult for Elizabeth because Woody had such a tragic life, and because he treated people very badly at times (the result of his progressive Huntington's Disease). Elizabeth recalls how over her desk she had a picture of Woody that seemed to stare back at her and say" Hurry up! Why can't you finish this book?" And Elizabeth would retort, "Woody, Shut up!"
As she came to write about the end of Woody's life Elizabeth found the story was so sad she couldn't finish the book. At this point, however, she had the opportunity to interview Woody's son Arlo. Reluctant to share much of a personal nature at first, Arlo finally recalled a time when his band was on tour and their bus passed the hospital where Woody had been a patient. Arlo broke down as he recalled the big tree outside the hospital where he and his siblings used to wait while their mother visited Woody. Elizabeth realized what it must have cost Arlo to be attached to his father. She also felt that Arlo's confidence and his "vulnerability was a gift to me. It helped me finish the story." The book has gone on to be nominated for the National Book Award and to garner many other accolades.
Elizabeth reports she hopes her books will have an effect on her readers. "What I want is for kids to think. My parents and godparents taught me to observe, to analyze. They've given me the freedom to think critically in my life that I would like to share with kids. I'm writing for the kid in Kansas City who is an outsider, not coping in school, can't understand why people are pushing him in a direction he doesn't want to go. When someone assigns him a biography I'm hoping a librarian will give him Woody's and that kid will get something out of the biography that he's not finding in his life."
