author
Best known for warm, child-friendly recitation books from around 1900, this little-known writer created verses meant to be spoken aloud with confidence and feeling. Her work captures a lively mix of performance, moral lessons, and everyday childhood moments.
by Alice Lewis Richards
Alice Lewis Richards was an American writer associated with Akron and Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and she is best known for "Smiles": A Book of Recitations for Girls and "Winks": A Book of Recitations for Boys, both published around 1900. In the preface to Smiles, she explains that she wanted to create recitations written especially for children and suitable for many occasions.
Her books were designed for reading aloud and performance, gathering short pieces about family life, nature, holidays, manners, and simple lessons. Smiles was copyrighted in 1899 and published in Akron, Ohio in 1900, and it was dedicated to her daughter, Laila Myrtle, which gives the work a personal, affectionate tone.
Reliable biographical detail about Richards is limited, but at least one antiquarian bookseller notes that she was active in the women’s suffrage movement and was a 1921 mayoral candidate in Cuyahoga Falls. Because information about her life is sparse, she is remembered mainly through the lively children’s recitation collections she left behind.