Lloyd Alexander

Lloyd Alexander

 January 30, 1924 - May 17, 2007

    

Lloyd Alexander became one of the great modern American writers with his beautifully written children's novels. Lloyd was born in Drexel Hill, Philadelphia. He lived in Drexel Hill for most of his childhood and adult life, taking small pauses in Paris and traveling with the army. Alexander Lloyd passed away in Drexel Hill when he was 83 years old from cancer.  Lloyd was not always a children’s novelist he started off writing non-fiction for adults. He took many experiences from his own and gave them to the characters in his books. After researching Lloyd I have come to find a fascination in him. It seems like he has a sort of magic surrounding him. He was so full of curiosity and imagination that his books just seem to come alive.  I have scanned many of his novels and it seems as though a lot of them have a similar theme. There seems to be a boy main character that is searching for something greater that what he has become. The boy usually has to fight evil in order to become that something greater. What I like about Alexander is how his stories can be similarly, but still have such character intimacy that they seem different.

Lloyd writes in a way that took a while for me to get used too. The names of people and places that he uses are different than any names I have heard of before. This would make it difficult for me as a teacher to use the book in class. I would have a hard time referring to the characters, because I would not know how to properly say them. I think this could raise an interesting topic in my class. If I were to use these stories in my curriculum I could have a discussion with my students about how they read names that they have not seen before. We could, as a class, decide on how we were going to pronounce them so that the students would have an easier time when reading on their own.

The Black Cauldron, a Disney movie made in 1985, was based on two of the books from the Chronicles of Prydain. I think this is a great supplement to the series.  If I were to use Alexander’s books in my class I could have them read one of the Black Cauldron books, and then watch the Disney movie. We could hold a class comparison and the students could do some work researching the similarities and differences between Alexander’s books and the Disney movie.