Cynthia Voigt
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Cynthia Voigt is an author of children's literature. She received the Newbery Medal for Dicey's Song, an Edgar Allan Poe Award for The Callender Papers, and the Phoenix Award 2003 honor book for A Solitary Blue.
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Partial bibliography
Tillerman Cycle
The Tillerman Cycle follows the struggles of the eponymous family, beginning with Homecoming, in which the eldest of one generation of Tillerman children is abandoned by their mother, and must find their way to their estranged grandmother, under the leadership of Dicey, the eldest sibling and main character of the series. Three of the books are, however, centered on other characters--The Runner follows Dicey's uncle. Come a Stranger and A Solitary Blue cover the same territory as Dicey's Song from the perspectives of Mina and Jeff, respectively.
- Homecoming (1973)
- Dicey's Song (1982)
- A Solitary Blue (1983)
- The Runner (1985)
- Come a Stranger (1986)
- Sons from Afar (1987)
- Seventeen Against the Dealer (1989)
The Kingdom
The vast majority of Voigt's work is marked by a contemporary or historical setting and a realistic style. The "Kingdom" books break from the former, being set in an unspecified but apparently invented region in a circa-medieval period of historical development. While the world is invented, however, it remains realistic in its construction, and resembles in most respects a historically faithful period setting, rather than a sword and sorcerer fairyland. What myths are present in the Kingdom are usually seen to have historical basis; the first novel, Jackaroo, deals with such a myth--a Robin Hood-like figure who is really just an archetype whose guise is donned by various nobles and commoners through the years.
The Kingdom books are connected by history and geography rather than the lifespan of any one character or family; though characters in later novels are sometimes descended from characters in earlier novels, their adventures are usually the stuff of myth or distant memory.
- Jackaroo (1985)
- On Fortune's Wheel (1990)
- The Wings of a Falcon (1993)
- Elske (1999)
Bad Girls
- Bad Girls (1996)
- Bad, Badder, Baddest (1997)
- It's Not Easy Being Bad (2000)
- Bad Girls in Love (2002)
Other novels
- Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers (1982)
- The Callender Papers (1983) (quasi-Gothic mystery involving a young girl in nineteenth-century New England who takes a summer job organizing the papers left behind by the death of the head of the troubled Callender family)
- Building Blocks (1984)
- Izzy, Willy-Nilly (1986)
- Tree by Leaf (1988)
- Glass Mountain (1991)
- The Vandemark Mummy (1991) (Mystery involving the theft of a mummy from a New England college. Intended for younger-than-average audience, for Voigt)
- Orfe (1992) (A retelling of the Orpheus myth)
- David and Jonathan (1993)
- When She Hollers (1994)