author

Alice Christie Dillon

b. 1876

A New York City schoolteacher who turned classroom storytelling into books for young readers, she is best remembered for the warmly written Story Hour Readers series she created with Ida Coe. Her work reflects an early-20th-century belief that children learn best through lively tales, rhyme, and repetition.

1 Audiobook

Story Hour Readers — Book Three

Story Hour Readers — Book Three

by Ida Coe, Alice Christie Dillon

About the author

Alice Christie Dillon, also listed as Alice Julia Christie Dillon, was born in Brooklyn in 1876 and later worked as a primary school teacher in the New York City public schools. Archival records from Indiana University describe her as both an author and teacher, and note that she attended high school in Yonkers before training as a teacher in New England.

She is most closely associated with the Story Hour Readers books, written with Ida Coe for beginning readers. Library and public-domain catalog records show these books were published in the 1910s and later revised, suggesting they had a lasting place in early reading instruction. The stories draw on folk tales, nursery material, and simple repeated language, giving them a read-aloud quality that still suits audio editions well.

Dillon died on December 29, 1941. Even though relatively little biographical detail is widely preserved, the record of her teaching and her children's reading books points to a writer deeply interested in how children listen, imagine, and learn.