P.S. McFadden: Children’s Writer

Tasha Tudor died yesterday at the age of 92. I never met her, but feel as though I knew her, nonetheless.

All my life, I’ve read and loved Tasha’s books, from Pumpkin Moonshine, her first book, published in 1938, to Corgyville Christmas, her last book, published in 2002. In all, she wrote and illustrated nearly 100 books for children.

Joan Donaldson,a dear friend of mine from graduate school wrote a book that Tasha illustrated, The Real Pretend. It was a lovely surprise when Joan showed up at one of our residencies with photos of Tasha and told us stories of the visits she made to Tasha’s home in Vermont.

The thing I most appreciate about Tasha Tudor is that she lived life very much on her own terms, pretty much ignoring the 20th (not to mention the 21st) century and adopting a lifestyle similar to that lived in the 1830s.

I don’t particularly want to raise goats or light my house with beeswax candles, but I do like the idea that, like Tasha, I have the ability to craft any sort of life I want for myself no matter what is going on in the larger world.

Tasha Tudor was a person who lived life joyfully and fully. As Dickens wrote “May the same be said of us, and all of us.”