I was Russell Freedman’s (1929–2018) editor at Clarion Books for twenty years and seven books.

When I started working with him, back in 1998, I was intimidated. He was a Newbery medalist, one of the brightest jewels in Clarion’s crown, and had been edited by John Briggs at Holiday House and by Jim Giblin and then Dorothy Briley at Clarion. Big shoes, and I was anxious about filling them. My first editorial suggestions on a Russell Freedman manuscript felt risky and were offered diffidently, but he welcomed them, accepted them, and, not surprisingly, improved on them.

Not that his work needed a lot of editing. When he turned in the manuscript for Angel Island back in 2012, I emailed him the following: “OK, I have edited Angel Island. If I got paid fifty cents a word, I might have made five dollars.”

What was it like to work with Russell Freedman? Remarkable. He overflowed with ideas, sometimes proposing two or three books at a time and letting me choose which would be next. He was a thorough researcher and a masterful writer. He did all his own photo research and delivered the images arranged in folders by chapter, complete with captions and credits. It’s sad, but true, that not all nonfiction writers do this. He met his deadlines. When he disagreed with me, he was gracious and usually right. He thanked me, complimented me, and dedicated his last Clarion book to me. Hardly like work at all.

Russ had strong opinions and strong principles. I saw him waver only once, and I was wavering right along with him.

In 2007 I accompanied him to Washington, DC, where he was to receive the National Humanities Medal from the hand of President George W. Bush. His partner, Evans, should have gone with him, but Evans was away, so I lucked out.

Neither Russ nor I was a fan of President Bush. Russ was ambivalent about meeting him, to say the least, and before the event he told me more than once that he didn’t want to shake the man’s hand. At the presentation ceremony, however, the handshake was offered and accepted along with the medal. Neither of us was prepared for the powerful charisma Bush exuded in person, and for that moment we were under the president’s spell. Certainly I wasn’t prepared to like President Bush, or to feel tickled pink about being an honored guest in the Bush White House, but that’s what happened. Although Russ never said so in so many words, I suspect it happened to him, too. I felt a little ashamed about it afterwards, and I bet he did also.

While preparing these remarks, I went back over several years of emails between Russ and me. I discovered that, overall, our correspondence wasn’t inspiring or full of good stories. For the most part it was perfunctory and incidental.



In his emails I found reminders about what a foodie he was. Whenever I went to Bologna to attend the children’s book fair, he’d always want to know if I planned to eat at his favorite spot, Diana. He emailed once, “We’ve been enjoying lots of farmers’ market asparagus gussied up with butter & parmigiana.” And another time, “Strawberries are delicious right now. We just had some from the Union Square market courtesy of a neighbor.” We both looked forward to meeting at Union Square Cafe for the occasional lunch, and always seriously discussed menu options. After lunch we would amble through the Greenmarket in search of whatever he fancied for dinner. He bought grass-fed beef from two different vendors so he could compare the quality. He bought corn on the cob, and always told me it should cook for just three minutes. He bought pumpkin pie, his favorite; one of my lingering regrets is that I never baked one for him. He was passionate about wine and converted me to two of his favorites, Syrah and Sancerre.

Russ was witty, a quality that persisted even at the most trying times. An email he sent during a period of convalescence included the words, “Recovering my energy and stamina is a slow process that creeps from day to day and, I am told, requires patience.” And another said, “I’ll be at Sloan Kettering all day tomorrow having my feeding tube removed at last, and at home all day Thursday, hiding under the bed.”

In an email Russ sent me in March 2017, he said, “I look forward to continuing our professional collaboration and our precious friendship.” Long before then, the line between those two facets of our relationship had blurred, and our collaboration and our friendship were no longer two separate things. But they did continue, for just one more year.

I miss Russell Freedman, the Zen master of children’s nonfiction, the ideal author; the wonderful fellow foodie, fellow liberal, and fellow Jew; brilliant conversationalist; and wise and thoughtful friend. I tell myself that he’s in Key West or Paris or Hong Kong, but I can’t make myself believe it. I feel what his absence means to me, and I think about all the family members, friends, and colleagues who also have a new emptiness in their lives, and finally about the generations of young people who won’t have new books by Russell Freedman to read, books that would illuminate the growing darkness.

Let us take up the torch, or the candle, and keep lighting the road ahead, even though Russ isn’t walking with us.

From the January/February 2019 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. This article is adapted from a eulogy delivered at Russell Freedman’s memorial service on October 11, 2018, at St. Peter’s Church in New York City.