Please bear with us as we update the website at a new host! These pages are dedicated to the life and work of Armstrong Wells Sperry, my maternal grandfather (b. Nov. 7, 1897, d. April 26, 1976), who received the American Library Association's John Newbery Medal [off-site link] in 1941 for the most distinguished American children's book published in 1940: Call It Courage. Text list of all the books written and/or illustrated by Armstrong Sperry Visual display of all the dustjackets of books written and/or illustrated by Armstrong Sperry These pages link to pages about nearly every individual book. I am planning to add information about foreign-language editions as I locate them (See the Dutch edition of Coconut!) and more about his early career as an illustrator.
"South Seas Again" -- Review of a show of his early paintings in the New York Times (1921) "Armstrong Sperry Has Prisoned the Elusive Atmosphere of the South Seas in Water Colors" -- Review of a show of his paintings of the South Pacific, in Honolulu Advertiser (1925) Review of Wagons Westward by Ellen Lewis Buell (1937) Local Writer Wins Award, New Haven Register (1941) Journal of National Education Association: "Newbery Medal Book" (1941) The Library Journal: "Armstrong Sperry, 1940 Newbery Winner," by Doris S. Patee (1941) From Mr. Astor to Life on the Sandwich Islands, Review of No Brighter Glory in the New York Herald Tribune (1942) The Blessing of the Hurricane by Elizabeth Rider Montgomery (1949) An interview with actor Peter Fonda (1981) in which the actor discussed the powerful influence Call It Courage had on him, growing up in the shadow of his famous father, Henry Fonda. "The Charge of the Tiger Shark." The World Magazine, Feb. 7, 1926, p. 7, with 1 illustration "What Volstead Did for a South Sea Isle" New York Herald Tribune, Sunday, March 28, 1926, p. 8 "Saved from Cannibals by a Stick of Dynamite" The World Magazine, April 25, 1926, pp. 8-9, with 1 illustration "In the Toils of an Octopus" The Literary Digest, May 1, 1926, pp. 60-61 "Ruining a South Sea Paradise to Flavor Soft Drinks" The Literary Digest, May 8, 1926, pp. 58-62 "Cast Alive into the Molten Heart of a Volcano" The World Magazine, May 23, 1926, pp. 8-9,with 2 illustrations "American Films in Tropic Tahiti" New York Herald Tribune Magazine, Sunday, July 25, 1926, Section VIII, pp. 1-2 "South Sea Adventure" The American Girl, June 1933: with 2 illustrations Newbery Award Acceptance Paper, by Armstrong Sperry (1941) Letter from Irene Smith, May 5, 1941, telling him that Call It Courage had been selected for the Newbery Medal. Letter from Doris S. Patee, May 23, 1941, AWS's editor at MacMillan, discussing the arrangements for the award ceremony. "A Part of Victory" by Armstrong Sperry (1943) On Writing for Young People, by Armstrong Sperry (1959) Correspondence with Virginia Haviland of the Children's Book Section of the Library of Congress on the 50th Anniversary of the Newbery Medal (1972) Letter from Ben Masselink, Feb. 4, 1974, the screenwriter for the Disney production of Call It Courage Letter from Ben Masselink, March 11, 1974 A high-quality 5x7 300 dpi version of the portrait of Armstrong Sperry above [JPEG, 466K], scanned from the original photograph, the headshot he used most often in press releases and on dustjackets. Reproduction quality. Photographs of Armstrong Sperry from the Sperry Papers in the Thetford VT Historical Society Various magazine work by Armstrong Sperry, 1926-1951 A curious oil painting from the 1930s The beginning of my archive of graphics for students to use in projects about the South Seas. A biographical timeline of the early career of Armstrong Sperry. Sources of the information are cited. NOTE: The following five biographical sketches below are copied verbatim from their sources. There are inaccuracies in the content which the page listed above corrects. Current Biography (1941) "Armstrong Sperry & His Work," by Helen Follett (1941) Autobiographical Sketch, by Armstrong Sperry (1951) 20th Century Children's Writers To Bora-Bora and Back Again: The Story of Armstrong W. Sperry, by Robert R. Barrett (1992) Did you know that Armstrong Sperry's older brother, Paul Sperry, was the inventor of the Sperry Topsider boatshoe? [off-site link] Obituaries of Armstrong Sperry: New York Times Obituaries (1976) New Haven Journal Courier Obituary (1976) His father, Sereno Clark Sperry, Sr.: Biography in Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County (1918) [off-site link] Obituary in New Haven Register (1933) Coming soon! Instructions to make several string figures from Hikueru (where Mafatu was from), collected by Armstrong Sperry's good friend, ethnologist Kenneth P. Emory. Order new copies of Call It Courage ($11.20), All Sail Set ($12.95) or Wagons Westward ($10.47) on-line at Amazon.com [off-site links] More books you can order from Amazon.com! Buy a mug decorated with the dustjackets from every book Armstrong Sperry wrote and illustrated! 11 oz. ceramic mug: $14, 15 oz. ceramic mug: $16, 16 oz. glass mug: $18 -- plus shipping (FREE shipping on orders over $50 through 8/25/02!) [off-site link] Brief introduction to Polynesian languages written by W. D. Alexander in Honolulu in 1865, and information about the Tahitian language with many phrases and pronunciation. [off-site link] Website of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu [off-site link] Hikueru, one of the low islands of the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia, where Mafatu of Call It Courage was from: Facts about Hikueru [off-site link] More facts about Hikueru, including maps! [off-site link] Labeled space photographs of part of the Tuamotu Archipelago including Hikueru [off-site link] Index of NASA shuttle images of the Tuamotus [off-site link] a close-up of just Hikueru from space a close-up of just Bora Bora in the Society Islands Images of Paradise: Representations of the Pacific Islands in Film and Video (a webpage to accompany a 1997 course at the University of Hawaii) [off-site link] Kapa: Hawaiian Bark Cloth, also called "tapa" in Tahiti. [off-site link] Log of a sailing voyage by Finnish travelers to the Tuamotus and Society Islands in the summer of 2002, with a terrific image clarifying the difference between volcanic islands like Tahiti & the Marquesas, barrier-reef islands like Bora Bora, and atolls like Hikueru. [off-site link] French Polynesia Chronology -- a timeline from 1513 when Balboa was the first European to discover the Pacific Ocean to the present. Includes lots of information on early contact between Europeans and the Polynesians, and dates of some of the worst hurricans in the region over the past centruy. [off-site link] University of Minnesota Children's Literature Research Collection Finding Aid for original manuscripts and illustrations by Armstrong Sperry in the Kerlan Collection (1994) In addition to original materials in the University of Minnesota's Children's Literature Research Collection mentioned above, the carbon typescript of Captain Cook Explores the South Seas (1955) is located at the deGrummond Children's Literature Collection at University of Southern Mississippi, a gift of Armstrong Sperry on June 25, 1969. An image of page 1 is available on-line, but with the logo of the University superimposed on it. [off-site link] Thetford (VT) Historical Society [off-site link] - My grandmother donated a lot of memorabilia about my grandfather's career to the Thetford Historical Society in the 1970s. The inventory of the Sperry Papers reproduced here was prepared by M.H. Wiencke, April 19, 2001. Items from that collection, "Armstrong Sperry Papers, 1920-1976," which are already at this site or which I have digitzed from their collection are accessible through hyperlinks from the inventory page. Dartmouth College, Baker Library has an entry for "Papers. 1942-1947," which includes the typescripts of two novels published by Macmillan, No Brighter Glory (New York, 1942), and The Rain Forest (New York, 1947), the latter with extensive ms. corrections. Gift of Armstrong Sperry. [off-site link] Yale University [off-site link] has the following listing in their library's on-line card catalog: Title: Modern Tahitian popular songs or ute / sung by Armstrong Sperry ; transcribed by Helen H. Roberts. Published: New Haven : Institute of Human Relations, Yale University, 1932. Location: MUDD, Stacks; Call Number: Vkg18 Location: MUSIC LIBRARY, SML; Call Number: Mu72 R54+ South Sea Tales, eight short stories by Jack London about the South Pacific, is in the public domain and available here in its entirety on-line [285K], courtesy of Project Gutenberg. Originally published in 1911 when Armstrong Sperry was 14, he states in his acceptance speech for the Newbery Medal that he had read London in his childhood. This is probably one of the books he read, which sparked his interest in exploring Polynesia for himself, and gave him his first glimpse of the terrible storm which hit Hikueru in 1903. White Shadows in the South Seas by Frederick O'Brien is the book that Armstrong Sperry claims was his main spark to travel to Polynesia. The text, while in the public domain (remember: anything prior to 1923 is in the public domain), is apparently not available for a free download, but a copy of the book can be purchased on-line, and ebook version is also available for $4.99. [off-site links] In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson (pictured right) recounts Stevenson's cruises on board the Casco and Equator in 1888 and 1889-90 is also in the public domain and available at this site in its entirety [579K], courtesy of Project Gutenberg. Armstrong Sperry states in his acceptance speech for the Newbery Medal that he had read Stevenson in his childhood. It is available in its entirety on-line at the above link. Originally published in a limited edition in London in 1890, it was serialized in The Sun (New York), and finally published in the U.S. by Scribner's in 1914 when Armstrong Sperry was 17. This is a book which I speculate influenced his interest in cannibals who inhabited the high islands of the Marquesas and Tuamotus, where Hikueru is located. Wild Life Among the Pacific Islanders by E. H. Lamont. Armstrong Sperry stated in a letter home to his parents in 1925 that he had read this book in preparation for his voyage on the Ka-imi-loa. Published in 1867, this is an account of Lamont's copra-trading voyage in 1852 to the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, Huahine, and Rarotonga, which included being marooned on Tongareva (Penrhyn) for a year as the first white resident of that atoll. Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines (1902) by H. Wilfred Walker -- again available here in its entirety [325K] courtesy of Project Gutenberg -- recounts the 20-year travels of a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, based on Walker's letters home. I have no indication that my grandfather either knew of or had read this book, but it is an interesting period piece about how the South Pacific was perceived by outsiders at the end of the nineteenth century. The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed by Heather Vogel Frederick. Simon & Schuster, 2002. The story of a girl whose father is a ship's captain, who brings his children on a whaling voyage. My grandfather would have loved this book -- and so will you! [off-site link] List of Award-Winning Books for Kids -- Looking for a good book to read? This is a list from San Fransisco Bay Area School Ratings, compiled from the winners of 15 different prestigious awards for books for young people. [off-site link] Want to know more about The Newbery Medal? [off-site link]