Patricia Reilly Giff: Author, Educator, and Storyteller

Author Patricia Reilly Giff is a former teacher who incorporates the lessons she learned about children through her occupation into her writing. Giff spent more than two decades as a full-time teacher, mostly in elementary schools, and so it is not surprising that the majority of her written texts deal with life at school, the many difficulties children face, and the problems adults have in trying to communicate with a population in which they no longer take part. According to Giff, she did not begin writing until 1975, when she had reached the age of 40 (La Gorce). Many people would consider this rather late in life to embark on a whole new career — particularly one like novel writing, where so few people are able to succeed and make a living — but Giff believed in herself and had a supportive family to encourage her, a factor that would contribute heavily to her literary perspective.

She is most famous for having written a series of texts called the Polk Street School Series. Second-grade teacher Ms. Rooney leads a classroom full of characters, starring pupils Richard Best and Emily Arrow. Both students have characteristics that make them appealing and problems that make them relatable to children who may be reading the stories. The first volume of the series was published in 1984 with the novel The Beast in Ms. Rooney's Room. The story deals with Richard "Beast" Best having to repeat the second grade and experiencing ridicule from other students in his class. He must also contend with the guilt and shame of not learning as quickly as children his own age.

The other volumes of the series deal with mundane problems that many children would likely face, such as having an item stolen at school, having trouble with an assignment, struggling in physical education class, having to attend summer school, fighting with classmates, and needing to take responsibility when something goes wrong. The final volume of the series, Next Stop, New York! (1999), deals with a class field trip to that city. Although Giff has said she has not necessarily stopped writing Polk Street stories, it is unlikely given that her interests have shifted to more mature themes.

After the series concluded, Giff decided to take on more adult themes in her subsequent novels. Both Lily's Crossing (1998) and Pictures of Hollis Woods (2003) were honored with Newbery Awards for literary excellence. Later books — including Nory Ryan's Song, Maggie's Door, and Willow Run — were written to appeal both to adults and to early teens or late pre-teens. These literary works are designed to explore different views of childhood and the process of growing up, ideas that were not suited to her earlier series. Each story is intended to teach a lesson about the human condition and about how even the smallest kindness one person can show another may have an enormous impact on that person's life.

Perhaps Giff's most celebrated piece of literature is The Pictures of Hollis Woods. The novel tells the story of a young, mistreated girl who understands the world primarily through the pictures she draws. Initially, she can only engage with the world through her drawings, as she has not developed strong language and communication skills — a consequence of the neglectful manner in which she was raised. One of the recurring motifs of the novel is the letter "W" and how it is incorporated into the character's art and, subsequently, into the way she perceives the world around her. As Hollis evolves as both a person and a character, so too does the meaning of the "W" she incorporates into her artwork. The artwork itself is the true symbol of the story; each piece is reflective of the artist and her emotional state.

The structure of the novel is mostly chronological. However, the narration moves between present and past tenses. When the text appears in standard type, the reader is placed more squarely within a single moment, witnessing events as they unfold. When the text is italicized, the reader is more heavily influenced by the first-person narrator, Hollis, and the events seem to be taking place in the past — the present-tense narrator reflecting on incidents that happened long ago. This technique gives a story filled with emotional distress both authenticity and the narrator veracity. She is a survivor of these events, and it becomes easier to believe her account.

When the reader is first introduced to Hollis Woods, she is in her first-grade class talking about words that begin with the letter "W." It is clear that even though this young girl has had a hard life, she is still hopeful. She says the "W" could stand for wish, want, or "Wouldn't it be loverly" (Giff 1). This reveals that she is aware her life is unpleasant, yet she is not so jaded as to have abandoned hope that things can become better. The W picture she draws depicts a family — something Hollis does not truly have. As the years pass, she keeps the W picture with her as a constant reminder of everything she lacks but longs for. At the end of the novel, when Hollis finally does have a family, she is reluctant to compare her new reality to the W picture (Giff 166). This is because reality has surpassed the ideal she once held; her life has become better than the wish itself.

One of the more important characters in the novel is Beatrice, whose cousin Josie has taken in Hollis. At one point in the story, Beatrice says, "Sometimes we learn from our drawings, things that we thought we didn't know" (Giff 150). Within the context of the story, this observation returns to the W picture. For every artist, something of themselves is put into their work — a part of the artistic eye that allows them to share their soul on the paper or canvas on which they create. For Hollis, her art functions as a kind of request for something better than what she has known. It reveals everything she truly wants without being obscured by what she only believes she wants.