Felice Holman

Felice Holman
1919 - 2023

La Jolla
Felice Holman, former resident of Klish Way in Del Mar, author of novels
and poetry collections for children and young adults, died on March 2,
2023, at her home in La Jolla, CA. She was 103.

Ms. Holman's books, which often display deep concern for social issues, have been included in the American Library Association Notables, The New York Times Best Books of the Year and have won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award and the Bank Street College Award.
Critics have noted her ability to combine a humorous, lighthearted touch with themes of child homelessness, ethnic prejudice, loneliness, and concern for the environment.

Her best-known work, "Slake's Limbo", a novel for young adults originally published by Scribner's in 1974, and also was published abroad in numerous languages, including Japanese and Catalan. The work has become standard reading in many high schools. Reissued in 2013 by Simon & Schuster as "121 Days", it is the story of Artemis Slake a boy who runs away from an unhappy home and bullying classmates and takes up residence in New York City's subway. His resourcefulness not only enables him to live there for months but eventually leads him to safety and the knowledge that he has the ability to survive on his own.

Ms. Holman's early books, directed to younger children and middle-grade readers, tend toward simple mysteries and light fantasy, as exemplified by one of her personal favorites, "The Cricket Winter", in which a mechanically-minded young boy manages to initiate communication with the resident cricket, using Morse code.
Ms. Holman also produced three books of poetry for the elementary
school-age audience; "I Hear You Smiling", "The Song in My Head", and "At the Top of My Voice". All were critically praised for their originality and humor; selections from each have been much anthologized.

Felice Holman Valen, born in 1919, grew up in Flushing, then a small, quiet New York City suburb. She went to Syracuse University, where she met Herbert Valen. Their marriage lasted from 1941, the year she graduated, until his death in 2001. The Valens lived in Westport, Connecticut, for 35 years, moving to Del Mar, California, in 1986, then to La Jolla. They had one daughter, Nanine Valen.

Living in Westport, Ms. Holman found the inspiration for her first book in her daughter's love of birds and her husband's desperate efforts to outwit the squirrel that kept invading the bird feeder he had built. "Elisabeth the Bird Watcher" was immediately successful and was followed by two more Elisabeth books, one of which, "Elisabeth and the Marsh Mystery", was made into a short film. "Slake's Limbo" was followed by "The Wild Children", another survival story. Based on fact, the novel takes place in the 1920s, after the Russian Revolution, when groups of children, made homeless by war, banded together and ran wild, squeezing out an existence through crime.
Praising the book, School Library Journal said, "The strength of the human spirit shines through as a powerful beacon of optimism."

In addition to her daughter, psychotherapist Nanine Valen, Ms. Holman is survived by her son-in-law, composer Gerald Levinson and her grandsons, filmmaker Ari Levinson and writer Adam Valen Levinson.

Who Am I?

The trees ask me,
And the sky,
And the sea asks me
Who am I?

The grass asks me,
And the sand,
And the rocks ask me
Who I am.

The wind tells me
At nightfall,
And the rain tells me
Someone small.

Someone small
Someone small
But a piece of it all.

From "At the Top of my Voice and Other Poems," illustrations by Edward Gorey.

The first photo is in the 1930's at Syracuse University
The second photo at age 99 in La Jolla.

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