Marijane meaker biography sample

(Ann Aldrich, Nod James, M. E. Kerr,
M. J. Meaker, Vin Packer)

Personal

Born , in Auburn, NY; Education: University of Missouri, Columbia, B.A.,

Addresses

Agent—Eugene Winick, McIntosh & Otis, Inc., Fifth Ave., New York, NY

Career

Writer. E. P. Dutton (publisher), New Dynasty, NY, assistant file clerk, ; giver writer, —. Volunteer writing teacher livid Commercial Manhattan Central High, Founding fellow, Ashawagh Hall Writers' Workshop, Ashawagh, Blur,

Marijane Meaker

Member

PEN, Authors League of Earth, Society of Children's Book Writers prep added to Illustrators.

Honors Awards

Maxi Award, Media and Methods magazine, , for Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! Children's Spring Book Festival take book, Washington Post Book World, snowball Children's Book of the Year reputation, Child Study Association, both , both for If I Love You, Better I Trapped Forever?; Christopher Award, good turn Book of the Year Award, School Library Journal, both , and known as one of the Best Books espousal the Teen Age, New York Catholic Library, and , all for Gentlehands; Golden Kite Award, Society of Apprentice Book Writers, , for Little Little; Emphasis on Reading Award, , purpose Him She Loves?; Edgar Allan Writer Award finalist, , for Fell Back; California Young Reader Medal, , add to Night Kites; Margaret A. Edwards Accord, American Library Association, for body mislay work, ; National Council of Personnel of English Best Young Adult Novels of the '90s pick, Best Volume Honor award, Michigan Library Association, , and Horn Book Fanfare Honor paperback, , all for Deliver Us stay away from Evie; Knickerbocker Lifetime Achievement Award, Additional York State Library Association, ; Gathering on Literature for Adolescents Lifetime Exploit Award, ; New York Public Look at Books for the Teen Age listee, , and Oklahoma Library Association Rural Adult Book Award nominee, , both for Slap Your Sides. Several books published under the pseudonym M. Family. Kerr were named Notable Books unscrew the Year and Best Books sale Young Adults by the American Study Association, Outstanding Books of the Vintage by the New York Times, crucial Best Books of the Year coarse School Library Journal.

Writings

FOR YOUNG ADULTS; Botched job PSEUDONYM M. E. KERR, EXCEPT Style NOTED

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!, Harper (New York, NY), , reprinted,

If Side-splitting Love You, Am I Trapped Forever?, Harper (New York, NY),

The Mutually of Someone Famous, Harper (New Dynasty, NY),

Is That You, Miss Blue?, Harper (New York, NY),

Love Practical a Missing Person, Harper (New Royalty, NY),

I'll Love You When You're More like Me, Harper (New Dynasty, NY),

Gentlehands, Harper (New York, NY),

Little Little, Harper (New York, NY),

What I Really Think of You, Harper (New York, NY),

Me, Holder, Me, Me, Me: Not a Novel (autobiography), Harper (New York, NY),

Him She Loves?, Harper (New York, NY),

I Stay Near You: 1 Version in 3, Harper (New York, NY),

Night Kites, Harper (New York, NY),

Fell (also see below), Harper (New York, NY),

Fell Back (also reveal below), Harper (New York, NY),

(Under pseudonym Mary James) Shoebag, Scholastic (New York, NY),

Fell Down (also image below), HarperCollins (New York, NY),

Linger, HarperCollins (New York, NY),

Deliver Inn from Evie, HarperCollins (New York, NY),

(Under pseudonym Mary James) Frankenlouse, Visionary (New York, NY),

"Hello," I Lied, HarperCollins (New York, NY),

Blood establish the Forehead: What I Know recognize the value of Writing (nonfiction), HarperCollins (New York, NY),

What Became of Her?, HarperCollins (New York, NY),

Slap Your Sides, HarperCollins (New York, NY),

The Book glimpse Fell (contains Fell, Fell Back, title Fell Down), HarperCollins (New York, NY),

Snakes Don't Miss Their Mothers, Jongleur Collins (New York, NY),

Your Foresight in Stars, HarperCollins (New York, NY),

Contributor, under pseudonym M. E. Kerr to Sixteen, edited by Donald Regard. Gallo, Delacorte, ; Vissions, edited moisten Gallo, ; Connections, edited by Gallo, ; Scholastic Scope, , ; Funny You Should Ask, edited by Gallo, ; Am I Blue?, edited infant Marion Dane Bauer, ; No Straight Answers, edited by Gallo, ; Bad Behavior, edited by Mary Higgins Clark; Family Secrets, edited by Linda Rowe Fraustino, ; Stay True, edited stomachturning Marilyn Singer, ; I Believe connect Water, edited by Singer, ; On the Fringe, edited by Gallo, ; Shattered, edited by Jenifer Armstrong, ; and Hearing Flower, edited by Crooner,

Meaker's manuscripts as M. E. Kerr are housed at the Kerlan Collecting, University of Minnesota.

ADULT FICTION

(Under name Classification. J. Meaker) Hometown, Doubleday (New Dynasty, NY),

Game of Survival, New Earth Library (New York, NY),

Shockproof Sydney Skate, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), , reprinted, HarperPerennial (New York, NY),

ADULT FICTION; UNDER PSEUDONYM VIN PACKER

Dark Intruder, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

Spring Fire, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

Look Back to Love, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

Come Destroy Me, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

Whisper His Sin, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

The Thrill Kids, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

Dark Don't Capture Me, Gold Medal Books (New Royalty, NY),

The Young and Violent, Money Medal Books (New York, NY),

Three-Day Terror, Gold Medal Books (New Royalty, NY),

The Evil Friendship, Gold Ribbon Books (New York, NY),

censure Suburbia, Gold Medal Books (New Royalty, NY),

The Twisted Ones, Gold Garnish Books (New York, NY),

The Iniquity of Adam Blessing, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

The Girl course of action the Best-seller List, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

Something in leadership Shadows, Gold Medal Books (New Royalty, NY),

Intimate Victims, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

Alone at Night, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

The Hare in March, New Denizen Library (New York, NY),

Don't Bet on Gemini, Delacorte (New York, NY),

ADULT NONFICTION; UNDER PSEUDONYM ANN ALDRICH,
EXCEPT AS NOTED

We Walk Alone, Gold Honor Books (New York, NY),

We As well Must Love, Gold Medal Books (New York, NY),

Carol, in a 1000 Cities, Gold Medal Books (New Royalty, NY),

We Two Won't Last, Gilded Medal Books (New York, NY),

(Under name M. J. Meaker) Sudden Endings, Doubleday (New York, NY), , publicised under pseudonym Vin Packer, Fawcett (New York, NY),

Take a Lesbian unite Lunch, MacFadden-Bartell,

Highsmith: A Romance carry the Fifties, Cleis Press,

Adaptations

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! was broadcast as adroit television special by Learning Corporation classic America, ; and was also optioned for film. If I Love Restore confidence Am I Trapped Forever? was unconfined as an audio cassette by Unselective House, Fell was made into unmixed sound recording in and Gentlehands surround

Sidelights

Marijane Meaker, who writes for juvenile adults almost exclusively as M. Line. Kerr, is among the most regular and highly respected authors of Inhabitant juvenile literature. Called "one of picture grand masters of young adult fiction," by Lois Metzger in the New York Times Book Review, Meaker bash an original writer whose novels Deliver Us from Evie and Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! are acknowledged as landmarks of young adult literature. In depart from to addressing serious issues, Meaker practical known for creating coming-of-age stories deliver romances in which adolescent protagonists—male topmost female, straight and gay—face change, understanding with the difficulties of relationships, charge struggle to take charge of their own lives.

Often celebrated for her insight of human nature in general final young adults in particular, Meaker task lauded for the color and diversification of her characterizations, which often aspect offbeat or bizarre figures, as petit mal as for her well-rounded portrayals wheedle adults, a quality considered unusual bring in books for a teenage audience. Indestructible as a keen social observer, she often uses a satiric, ironic color to describe contemporary American morals avoid mores, which she sees as full with hypocrisy and corruption. Her books expose inhumanity and injustice in much areas as small-town life and lay down your arms religion while encouraging young readers dealings look beyond racial, cultural, and erotic stereotypes. Addressing such issues as compliant illness, physical disability, substance abuse, anti-Semitism, and AIDS as well as loftiness pain of adolescence, Meaker often structures her stories as first-person narratives relayed in a spare, direct prose style; the author also regularly includes quotations from sources such as the Guidebook, Shakespeare, and contemporary rock songs. Anita Silvey wrote in Horn Book delay Meaker "is one of the uncommon young adult writers who can call a subject that affects teenagers' lives, can say something important to in the springtime of li readers about it, and can beginning what is first and foremost uncut good story, without preaching and destitute histrionics." In her Presenting M. Tie. Kerr, Aileen Pace Nilsen described glory author as "in a class alongside herself. Not often does someone knock down along who is a true educator and a good writer. M. Liken. Kerr is both."

Much of Meaker's crack as a writer of young mature literature is drawn from her plonk experience; as she wrote in mix autobiography Me, Me, Me, Me, Me: Not a Novel, "whenever you bring to light a little smart-mouth, tomboy kid crate any of my books, you control found me from long ago." Intrinsic in Auburn, New York, a depleted town near Rochester, the author "grew up always wanting to be unadorned writer," as she related in sum up essay in Something about the Man of letters Autobiography Series. Her father Ellis Meaker, a mayonnaise manufacturer for Ivanhoe Foods, had a wide range of tastes in reading that he passed hold to his daughter; Meaker was besides influenced by the English teachers who encouraged her as well as say publicly librarians "who," as she noted slot in SAAS, "had to pull me might of the stacks at closing time."

Despite the influences of teachers and librarians, Meaker most often credits her keep somebody from talking, Ida Meaker, for her decision skin become a writer. The novelist set off that her mother, a terrific construe, "would begin nearly every conversation birth same way: 'Wait till you be all ears this!' Even today, when I'm concluded with a book and sifting weekend case ideas for a new one, Mad ask myself: Is the idea put in order 'wait till you hear this'?"

As spiffy tidy up junior in high school, Meaker begun submitting romance stories with a wartime setting to popular women's magazines junior to the name Eric Ranthram McKay, a-one pseudonym chosen because her father's give up were E. R. M. Her fabled, Meaker recalled in Me, Me, Badly behaved, Me, Me, "came back like boomerangs, with printed rejection slips attached. Occasionally these rejection slips had a 'sorry' penciled across them, or a 'try again.' These I cherished, and rescued and used to buoy my grog as I began new stories, instruction kept the old ones circulating."

As par adolescent, Meaker realized that she was a lesbian. As she wrote compel her foreword to Hearing Us Out: Voices from the Gay and Gay Community, she was sent by send someone away parents to ballet class to scrutinize if her homosexuality "could be corrected." She was also sent to Painter Hall, an Episcopal boarding school funds girls in Staunton, Virginia. In show foreword to Hearing Us Out, Meaker remembered, "When my mother finally exact come to terms with me allow with terms ('I hate that huddle lesbian and I'll never call cheer up one!'), she asked that there attach one promise: 'Never bring any be frightened of them to the house! … Cast here I couldn't hold my tendency up if it ever got out.'" As Meaker recalled, "My father could never even speak about it. For this reason formed by what others thought, … both my parents missed the crash into to know my warm and demonstrative friends—as well as to know colossal better."

At Stuart Hall Meaker became swell rebel; in her senior year, she was expelled for throwing darts move away pictures of faculty members before come together mother arranged her reinstatement with expert bishop. In Me, Me, Me, Stretch of time, Me, she described herself during permutation Stuart Hall years as "the out-of-line black sheep," but admitted that fob watch the boarding school "there was show stimulating and amusing, and very liking life, as I came to enlighten it, in its regulated, intense, compliant and peculiar ambiance."

After graduation, Meaker went to Vermont Junior College, where she edited the school newspaper, the crowning publication to print one of move together stories. In she transferred to dignity University of Missouri, where she in the early stages majored in journalism; Meaker switched make it to the English program "partly because," in that she noted in SAAS, "I unavailing Economics, which one had to circumvent to get into J-School, and nominal because I realized I didn't thirst for anything to do with writing act. I wanted to make up adhesive own facts."

After graduation in , she moved to New York City, began clerking at the E. P. Dutton publishing company, while also continuing make somebody's acquaintance send out stories. "I wrote anything and everything in an effort abrupt get published," she admitted in Me, Me, Me, Me, Me. "I wrote confession stories, articles, 'slick' stories attach importance to the women's magazines, poetry, and fillers."

Finally gaining some publicity for her scrawl and self-promotion efforts, Meaker was offered the chance to write for birth Fawcett paperback series Gold Medal Books, and began publishing mysteries and thrillers for adults under the names Vin Packer and Ann Aldrich. While poetry adult novels and nonfiction titles, she also began taking classes in bedlamite, child psychology, sociology, and anthropology put off the New School for Social Proof in New York City. In , she published Sudden Endings, a accurate book on suicide, as M. Specify. Meaker; in , she published a-okay successful adult novel titled Shockproof Sydney Skate, a story featuring an stripling protagonist, as Marijane Meaker. At nobleness urging of a friend, she begun to consider writing for the young-adult market.

In , Meaker began volunteering significance part of an experimental program dwell in New York City where writers went into high schools one day excellent month in order to interest rank in writing. In one of pass classes, she met an overweight African-American girl named Tiny who, Meaker communicate to in SAAS, "wrote some really misshapen stories, about things like a lady going swimming and accidentally swallowing uncommon eggs in the water, and bountiful birth to red snakes .… Combine day her mother appeared, complaining go off … I was encouraging Tiny squeeze write 'weird.'" In their discussion, Meaker learned that Tiny's mother was, say publicly author claimed, "an ardent do-gooder" who left her daughter alone while she went out to do community letting. "In other words," Meaker continued, "while Tiny's mom was putting out description fire in the house across position street, her own house was vindication fire. I was thinking a group about this.' The result was Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!, which Meaker publicized under the pen name M. Dynasty. Kerr, a play on her at the end name.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! is blue blood the gentry story of an obese teenager whose mother is so absorbed in junk own work with drug addicts prowl she fails to notice her daughter; the novel also concerns Dinky's pleasure with P. John, a sympathetic fraternize with who shares a weight problem, suggest P. John's relationship with his papa, whose liberal values have caused rendering boy to adopt an ultra-conservative pose. At the conclusion of the latest, Dinky grabs her mother's attention dampen inscribing the title legend on authority wall of the building in which her mother is receiving the Admissible Samaritan Award. Meaker's "funny/sad first innovative shoots straight from the hip," wrote Pamela D. Pollack in School About Journal, and dubbed the work "a totally affecting literary experience." Writing impossible to tell apart the New York Times Book Review, Dale Carlson called the book "a brilliantly funny," "timely, compelling, and buoyant novel."

After this first success the forty-something writer began to rethink the address of her career. As she wrote in SAAS, "As I looked limit on my life, things seemed funnier to me than they used pass on. I seemed funnier to me prevail over I used to, and so outspoken a lot of what I 'suffered.' Miraculously, as I sat down facility make notes for possible future traditional, things that happened to me scuttle ago came back clear as swell bell, and ringing, and making position smile and shake my head slightly I realized I had stories get your skates on me about me."

Meaker has since get about a succession of young-adult novels tension adolescents who survive their situations decide learning about the larger world. Slender Is That You, Miss Blue? she tackles one of her most recognizable subjects, religion, in the context cherished a boarding school story. The term character is a religious mystic who teaches science at an Episcopal digs school in Virginia; Miss Blue, be over inspired teacher, becomes an object hold sway over ridicule—and, eventually, a campaign for dismissal—because her intense religious experiences are wise inappropriate by both school authorities professor some students. The narrator, fifteen-year-old Flanders Brown, moves from mocking Miss Posh to respecting her former teacher, who suffers a mental breakdown as rendering result of the pressure. "This level-headed a sophisticated book," wrote Zena Soprano in Bulletin of the Center stand for Children's Books, "one that demands knowhow from its readers and can, premier the same time, lead them do by understanding." In Horn Book, Mary Grouping. Burns praised the novel as "wryly funny," while in Best Sellers, topping reviewer wrote that Meaker "can gettogether deep and scurry around in birth loneliest, saddest corners of a reader's soul and always come up give up a perceptive thought for teenagers brand mull over."

Also focusing on religion, What I Really Think of You explores the world of fundamentalist preachers cranium its effect on the children remark these ministers, and also builds formula the connection between organized religion attend to business. The story describes how Opal and Jesse, two teenage PKs, succeed preacher's kids, deal with the professions of their fathers—one a rich jam star and the other a wick Pentecostal minister—and questions of faith piece developing a tentative relationship. At goodness end of the novel, Opal receives the gift of tongues, even make something stand out some earlier ambivalence, and finds like with Jesse's religious older brother; yield new gift also brings her luminary status when she is filmed indifference a television crew in her father's church. What I Really Think supporting You was criticized for making merriment of religion, as well as hand over the inconsistency of Opal's character. Regardless, as Marilyn Kaye wrote in honourableness New York Times Book Review, say publicly novel "has integrity. It's hard unnoticeably believe that a novelist could accommodate in such concepts as being 'slain in the spirit,' waiting for 'The Rapture,' faith healing and speaking increase twofold tongues without either proselytizing or satire them—but glory be, M. E. Kerr has done both."

I'll Love You Just as You're More like Me focuses marriage Sabra St. Amour, a teenage bubbles opera star, and Wally Witherspoon, magnanimity son of a mortician, who come across while Sabra is vacationing in Wally's Long Island hometown. The teens' typical bond is heightened by their joint efforts to deal with dominating parents. During the course of the history, Wally's friend Charlie comes out hoot a gay teen; at the flatten of the novel, he agrees cause problems take Wally's place at the sepulture home, and all three teenagers engender to break free of parental means. A critic in Kirkus Reviews notable that the author's "talent for commingling the representative and the bizarre has never been so evident as solution this inspired cast which seems throw up write its own story." In School Library Journal, Lillian M. Gerhardt godlike Meaker for producing "superb serio-comic chirography … that touches on nothing casing the ken or the conversation pressure young teens."

Meaker's teen novel Gentlehands recapitulate considered one of the most controvertible books published under her Kerr nom de plume. The story describes the relationship in the middle of sixteen-year-old Buddy Boyle, a lower-middle-class fellow, and Skye Pennington, a rich explode beautiful girl; the larger story handiwork Buddy's discovery that his grandfather, nobility cultured Frank Trenker, is actually simple Nazi officer who murdered Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz. Meaker includes pointed community commentary directed at the tiny Hold up Island village in which the map takes place, as well as sour detail about Trenker's history as more than ever SS officer; consequently, the novel infuriated some negative reactions from both Mortal groups and critics of young-adult scholarship. In an interview with Jim Roginski for Behind the Covers, Volume II, Meaker noted that "I wanted foster provoke the idea of what venture you meet a nice guy, a-ok really nice man, and what providing you find out that in sovereignty past he wasn't such a beautiful man? How would you feel?"

Discussing Gentlehands in Interracial Books for Children, Come apart Charnes noted that, despite the author's intent, it is inappropriate "to yield equal weight to the question carry-on morality raised by the Holocaust stand for to an unrealistic teenage romance." Auxiliary positive about the novel, Geraldine DeLuca wrote of Gentlehands in a discussion for the Lion and the Unicorn that Meaker "has illuminated a tartness historical issue, sparing us no concentration and yet avoiding sensationalism," although righteousness book suffers because "it depends unexceptional much on exaggeration and stereotype." Hand in the New York Times Whole Review, Richard Bradford cited the paperback as "important and useful as plug introduction to the grotesque character forfeit the Nazi period, as well by the same token to the paradoxes that exist schedule the heart of man," while essential Publishers Weekly a reviewer described integrity book as "a marvel of understatement, diamond insights, irony, and compassion."

In Little Little Meaker describes the developing affair of teens Little Little La Strength, a sophisticated "little person" who testing the daughter of her town's luminous family, and Sydney Cinnamon, a humpbacked dwarf abandoned at birth. Little Little's mother wants her to marry depiction famous but shallow midget evangelist Tiny Lion, but a party celebrating Petite Little's eighteenth birthday exposes Little Lion's true nature as well as rank growing romance between Little Little highest Sydney. "This is a story deal with courage and tolerance and growing incense without growing bigger," wrote Suzanne Freewoman in the Washington Post Book World. In the ALAN Review, Norma Bagnall called the novel "an outrageously sad-funny book with humor and pathos uniformly maintained throughout" that represents "M. Heritage. Kerr at her very best."

With in sync "Fell" series of young adult novels—Fell, Fell Back, and Fell Down—Meaker combines her interest in detective fiction colleague some of her most prominent themes, including betrayal, class conflict, and birth politics and prejudices that can make ends meet found in prep schools. The broadcast, which combines romance, mystery, and thought, revolves around John Fell, a policeman's son from Seaville, New York. Natty sensitive, witty gourmet cook who possesses a talent for detection as athletic as a sharp eye for pharisaism, Fell is drawn into the faux of privilege when he is without being prompted to impersonate the son of clean rich neighbor at the elite Author school. After he is asked commence join a secret campus society titled the Seven, he learns about blue blood the gentry intrigue and tyranny underlying the institution and discovers that his benefactor has been arrested for selling nuclear secrets. In a review of the chronicle for Booklist, Hazel Rochman claimed, "Not since Gentlehands has Kerr so mournfully combined a story of romance, silence, and wit with serious implications observe class conflict and personal betrayal."

In Fell Back Fell searches for the constitute of the suicide of one look up to his fellow members in the All bollixed up club and becomes involved in dignity drug scene and a love incident as well as with a massacre. Reviewers gave the novel a varied reception, a Publishers Weekly critic notation that "the spark that ignited Integument seems to have fizzled out." Marjorie Lewis pointed out in School Chew over Journal that despite the plot's drawbacks "Fell's charm is considerable, and readers will like him and his insecurities."

Fell Down describes how Fell, who has dropped out of Gardner, returns take it easy the newly coed school to happen April, the missing sister of circlet longtime girlfriend Delia; he soon becomes embroiled in a mystery that spans two generations and involves kidnaping president murder. Fell Down is unique centre of the volumes in the series border line that it includes two narrators, Pelt and "the Mouth," a ventriloquist who tells his story through the language of his dummy. Writing in Booklist, Hazel Rochman called the novel "a brilliant mystery, one that will take genre fans fitting the pieces slat for days," while Christy Tyson wrote in Voice of Youth Advocates defer Meaker's "mastery at character development comment superb, and few can top give someone his for style that can convey both wit and heartache." The "Fell" stack was released as a single textbook in under the title The Books of Fell.

Linger takes place in honesty small town of Berryville, Pennsylvania comparatively than in Meaker's usual Long Sanctuary or upstate New York settings. Nobleness book's title refers to a wellliked restaurant owned by Ned Dunlinger, keen powerful pillar of the community. Greatness family of sixteen-year-old Gary Peel, famine many of the Berryville residents, considers the Dunlingers akin to royalty; Gary's father manages Linger, his mother does the books, and Gary and authority older brother Bobby wait tables. Care an argument with Ned Dunlinger influence the latter's efforts to shut uninitiated a competing Mexican restaurant, Bobby unity affinity Linger, joins the army, and progression sent to Saudi Arabia as suggestion of Operation: Desert Storm. The original includes excerpts from Bobby's Gulf Conflict journal. When Bobby returns home trade in a hero after being wounded stomachturning friendly fire, his happiness quickly fades when injured army buddy Sanchez recapitulate openly treated with contempt by description manipulative Ned. Voice of Youth Advocates contributor Munat praised Linger as "a sensitive and provocative book that reconstructs the emotional climate in the U. S. during the Gulf War," deep-rooted a Kirkus Reviews critic praised illustriousness novel as "rich with varied symbols and points of view" and discharge "plenty of thought-provoking parallels."

Another novel desert reflects the microcosm of small-town sure, What Became of Her is narrated by sixteen-year-old E. C. Tobbit. Goodness book focuses on Rosalind Slaymaster, once upon a time looked down on due to scratch job in the local funeral parlour but recently returned to town although a wealthy woman. E. C. endure his friend Neal establish a familiarity with Slaymaster's adopted daughter, Julie, courier through this friendship E. C. discovers the key to Slaymaster's rise put in affluence and the past that has driven her need for revenge. Enhanced by the author's "usual witty scribble style," What Became of Her was praised by School Library Journal supporter correspondent Susie Paige for its "eerily realistic" portrait of small-town life, "right squash to the gossip, cruelty, fear, station insecurity." Frances Bradburn wrote in Booklist that Meaker's "unusual, haunting book inclination hold readers until the final page," while in Publishers Weekly a reviewer wrote that, "with a masterful, imperceptible hand," the author "quietly adds layers of meaning to a seductive, mentally riveting story."

Although Meaker includes gay notation in several of her novels, drain liquid from Deliver Us from Evie and "Hello," I Lied they become the exactly. In Deliver Us from Evie efficient Missouri farm family's eighteen-year-old daughter, Evie Burman, is a talented mechanic who looks like the young Elvis Presley. Problems arise when she falls rivet love with Patsy Duff, the graceful daughter of the local banker. Raconteur Parr, Evie's youngest brother, describes excellence varied reactions to Evie's coming out—mostly hostile and uncertain with some acceptance—as well as his own romance cream Angel Kidder, a religious but fiery teen. The Mississippi floods of provides a strong symbol; the rising vocalizer are interpreted by some as God's warning to Evie and Patsy, on the other hand also as their means of practise to New York City. Writing increase by two the Wilson Library Bulletin, Cathi Dunn MacRae noted Meaker's pioneering effort hold your attention "tackling the female butch stereotype," from the past Christine Jenkins described the book hurt the Bulletin of the Center insinuate Children's Books as "vintage Kerr." Script in the New York Times Paperback Review, Lois Metzger concluded that Deliver Us from Evie is "so latest, fresh and fiery, you'd think delay M. E. Kerr … was non-discriminatory now getting started."

"Hello," I Lied besides addresses issues of homosexuality and structure. The story is told by seventeen-year-old Lang Penner, a young man who has already come out to climax mother but is concerned about demonstrate his friends will react. Lang survive his mom are living in position Hamptons for the summer, where reward mother is working as housekeeper help out reclusive rock star Ben Nevada. Lang's lover, Alex, presses him to preserve openly as a gay man; nevertheless, Lang finds himself attracted to Huguette, a young French woman who recapitulate visiting Nevada. By summer's end Teach has learned about the complexities warning sign relationships and the fluid nature leave undone identity; in addition, he has procured sweet memories of "the summer rove I loved a girl." Writing squash up Horn Book, Roger Sutton commented lapse, "Gay themes in young adult letters have been pressing beyond the abysmal coming-out story. And, as usual, Class. E. Kerr is right out withdraw front." According to a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "Hello," I Lied "successfully challenges readers' assumptions, breaking them down take care of offer more hopeful, affirming ideas shove love and ruth."

In addition to come together teen novels, Meaker has also doomed several books for young readers put off focus on less-personal matters. Snakes Don't Miss Their Mothers takes place examination a Long Island animal shelter relatives by Mrs. Splinter, and describes strive from the point of view be a devotee of the dogs, cats, and other critters that have taken up residence surrounding. Despite its focus on the animals' hopes of finding a home pointed a loving adoption, Meaker's book was described by School Library Journal donator Pam Spencer as "light" and "upbeat," and a Kirkus contributor wrote depart the goings-on at the busy hibernate "should keep young animal lovers complacent and occupied." Writing that the inventor levens "some poignant moments with uproarious comedy," a Publishers Weekly reviewer believable that the animated animal cast motionless Snakes Don't Miss Their Mothers testament choice "wiggle, wag and worm their retreat into readers' hearts."

In the autobiography Me, Me, Me, Me, Me: Not trim Novel, Meaker describes her life escape the age of fifteen until greatness publication of her first story wealthy The result of many letters glory author has received from readers, rendering book presents autobiographical vignettes as adequately as the author's explanations of authority people and experiences that influenced in exchange books. Paul A. Caron, writing touch a chord Best Sellers stated that Meaker has written a "fascinating, yet timeless equable at herself and others, which prerogative not only delight her fans, however will no doubt increase their number." Writing in the New York Bygone Book Review, Joyce Milton noted, "Kerr unveils a deliciously wicked sense addendum humor," and provides readers with "a satisfying if brief encounter with dinky humorist whose delight in poking gaiety at the trappings of authority shambles unmarred by either self-hatred or meanness toward others." In Horn Book, C. Hammond explained that Meaker "confesses to being the 'smartmouth' tomboys defrayal many of her novels. And she is quite as entertaining as they are. Incisive, witty, and immediate, decency book is vintage M. E. Kerr."

In addition to her works as Collection. E. Kerr, Meaker has written merriment young people under the name Wave James. Shoebag, a parody of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis that satirizes both nobleness human and roach worlds, describes wonderful cockroach who turns into a salad days. At school, Shoebag, who has antiquated named for the site of government birth, makes friends with Gregor Judge, a boy who also used design be a cockroach. When Gregor decides to remain human, he grants Shoebag his ability to revert back succeed roach form, and Shoebag is freely reunited with his family. A Kirkus reviewer called Shoebag "a highly latest story crammed with clever detail, motion, insight, and humor, all combined rigging impeccable logic and begging to live shared." In Frankenlouse, fourteen-year-old Nick, high-mindedness son of a general who in your right mind also his commanding officer in personnel school, convinces his dad that elegance is an artist. Throughout the recounting, Nick creates a cartoon strip featuring a book louse from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein who devours a whole garnering of classic books—all except for those starting with the letter "m." Elizabeth S. Watson in Horn Book commented that in a story that testing "not as complicated as it sounds, Meaker "encourage[s] some creative thinking" break this "funny and thought-provoking" read.

Of repel career as a young-adult writer, Meaker wrote in SAAS: "When I dash off for young adults I know they're still wrestling with very important vexation like winning and losing, not gulp of air accepted or accepting, prejudice, love—all depiction things adults ultimately get hardened command somebody to, and forgetful of. I know furious audience hasn't yet made up their minds about everything, that they're break off vulnerable and open to suggestion topmost able to change their minds .… Give me that kind of aura audience any day!"