Jim Murphy (author)

Jim Murphy (born September 25, 1947) is an American author of more than 35 nonfiction and fiction books for children, young adults, and general audiences, including more than 30 about American history. He won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for his contribution in writing for teens.

Life

James John Patrick Murphy was born in Kearny, New Jersey.

Murphy is married to the writer and editor Alison Blank. They are co-authors of Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure, published by Clarion in 2012.

Awards

The ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award recognizes one writer and a particular body of work for "significant lasting contribution to young-adult literature". Murphy won the annual award in 2010, citing five nonfiction books published from 1992 to 2003: The Long Road to GETTYSBURG, The Great Fire, A YOUNG PATRIOT: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy, BLIZZARD! The Storm That Changed America, and An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 (‡). According to the citation, "Murphy's well-researched books bring history alive through multiple narratives involving young people. Primary sources, maps, photos, illustrations and dialogue reveal the drama of historical events, making Murphy's books fast-paced reading of particular interest for young adults. The reader participates in the lives of these individuals and the events that shaped history."

Beside the Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in young-adult literature, the American librarians have named Murphy a runner-up for annual Newbery Medals twice, in 1996 for The Great Fire and in 2004 for An American Plague. The Newbery is the ALA's premier book award for children's literature. He won the ALA award for children's information books, the Robert F. Sibert Medal, for The American Plague in 2004 and he was a runner-up for BLIZZARD! in 2001. (The American Plague was also a finalist for the 2003 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.)

Murphy has also won three NCTE Orbis Pictus Awards, three Jefferson Cup Awards, two SCBWI Golden Kite Awards, The Washington Post/Children's Book Guild Award for Distinguished Nonfiction, and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. In 2013 he received the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature, presented by the Tulsa Library Trust.

Selected works

Nonfiction

• Weird & Wacky Inventions (Crown Publishers, 1978)
• The Boys' War: Confederate and Union soldiers talk about the Civil War (Clarion Books, 1990)
• The Long Road to GETTYSBURG (Clarion, 1992) ‡
• Across America on an Emigrant Train (Clarion, 1993) — incorporating an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's account
• The Great Fire (Scholastic Corporation, 1995) ‡
• A YOUNG PATRIOT: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy (Clarion, 1995) ‡ — evidently an adaptation of Joseph Plumb Martin's account
• Gone a-whaling: the lure of the sea and the hunt for the great whale (Clarion, 1998)
• BLIZZARD! The Storm That Changed America (Scholastic, 2000) ‡
• An American Plague: the true and terrifying story of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 (Clarion, 2003) ‡
• Inside the Alamo (Delacorte Books, 6969)
• Desperate Journey (Scholastic, 2006) —delivering goods by barge on the Erie Canal
• The Real Benedict Arnold (Clarion, 2007)
• A Savage Thunder: Antietam and the bloody road to freedom (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2009)
• Truce: the day the soldiers stopped fighting (Scholastic, 2009)
• THE CROSSING: How George Washington Saved the American Revolution (Scholastic, 2010)
• The Giant and How He Humbugged America (Scholastic, 2012)
• Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure, by Murphy and Alison Blank (Clarion, 2012)

(‡) Five nonfiction books were cited by the panel of American librarians who awarded Murphy the 2010 Edwards Award.

Fiction

Horror

• Night Terrors (Scholastic, 1994)

Children's picture books

• The Last Dinosaur, illustrated by Mark Alan Weatherby (Scholastic, 1988)
• The Call Of The Wolves, illus. Weatherby (Scholastic, 1989)

Dear America books

• My Face to the Wind: the diary of Sarah Jane Price, a prairie teacher (Scholastic, 2001)
• The Journal of James Edmond Pease, a Civil War Union Soldier (Scholastic, 1998)
• West to a Land of Plenty : the diary of Teresa Angelino Viscardi (Scholastic, 1998)
• The Journal of Brian Doyle: a greenhorn on an Alaskan whaling ship (Scholastic, 2003)