author

Florence Crannell Means

1891–1980

Known for bringing a wider range of lives and cultures into children's fiction, this American writer helped open young readers' eyes to people they might not otherwise meet. Her best-known work includes The Moved-Outers, a story about Japanese American wartime incarceration that received Newbery Honor recognition.

1 Audiobook

Across the Fruited Plain

Across the Fruited Plain

by Florence Crannell Means

About the author

Born in 1891, she was an American writer for children and young adults whose books often centered on people and communities that were rarely given much space in juvenile fiction of her time. Reference works describe her as one of the early authors in children's literature to focus seriously on minority groups, with the hope of encouraging empathy and social awareness.

Her most widely remembered book is The Moved-Outers (1945), about the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The novel was named a Newbery Honor book, and it remains one of the works most often associated with her career.

Florence Crannell Means died in 1980. While detailed biographical information is not easy to confirm from the sources I found, her reputation rests on fiction that tried to broaden the social world of young readers and treat difficult subjects with unusual seriousness for its era.