Celebrated children’s editor Margaret K. McElderry has passed away at age 98. Her imprint, Margaret McElderry Books, was the first juvenile imprint to be named after an editor. She stayed with the imprint into her 90s serving as editor-at-large.
McElderry attended Mount Holyoke and the Carnegie Library School. Her first job was in the New York Public Library’s children’s department before entering publishing with a position at Atheneum Books.
The New York Times reports: “Her success in both the artistic and commercial realm showed in the many prizes her authors won. In 1952, she became the first editor whose books won both the Newbery (for writing) and Caldecott (for illustration) in the same year. Ms. [Eleanor] Estes’s Ginger Pye won the Newbery, and Finders Keepers by Will Lipkind, with illustrations by Nicolas Mordvinoff, won the Caldecott.”