Claire Rudolf Murphy
Personal Information
Description
Claire Rudolf Murphy was born in Spokane, Washington, the daughter of a journalist and a librarian. She has loved writing since grade school. She received a degree in history from Santa Clara University, then went on to earn a teaching credential from the University of California at Berkeley. In 1974, after graduating from college, she moved to Alaska and became a Jesuit Volunteer teacher at St. Mary’s in western Alaska. She met her husband there and they later moved to Fairbanks where they both worked as teachers. She earned her Master's of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. While teaching middle-school language arts, she began writing in order to understand the creative process and help her students. Following the birth of her own children, she quit teaching and begin writing professionally. In 1998, her husband retired from his position as principal, and they moved to Spokane, Washington.
Books
Gold Rush Winter
At the end of the nineteenth century, Swedish-Americans Klondy and her mother travel from South Dakota to Alaska to live with Klondy's father, a gold-miner who left for the mines when she was just a baby. Based on events in the life of Klondy Nelson.
Free radical
In Fairbanks, Alaska, in the middle of the summer Little League baseball season, fifteen-year-old Luke is stunned when his mother confesses that she is wanted by the FBI for her role in the death of a student during an anti-Vietnam War protest thirty years ago.
Caribou Girl
In northern Alaska an Eskimo girl is transformed into a caribou and travels with the herd in order to save her human family from starvation.
Gold Star Sister
While watching her grandmother cope with the last stages of cancer, thirteen-year-old Carrie comes to know her better through letters she and her long-dead brother wrote to each other during World War II.
The prince and the Salmon People
When the salmon stop coming to his village, a Tsimshian prince travels to the world of the Spring Salmon People and discovers the vital connection between the human and animal worlds.
Friendship across Arctic waters
Describes the field trip of eleven Cub Scouts from Alaska to Provideniya, a small town in the Soviet Far East.
Martin and Bobby
Martin and Bobby follows the lives, words, and final days of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Initially wary of one another, their relationship evolved from challenging and testing each other to finally "arriving in the same place" as allies fighting poverty and racism.
My country, 'tis of thee
Explains how the song "My country, 'tis of thee" can be understood to go along with the expansion of civil rights in the United States.
Marching with Aunt Susan
Not allowed to go hiking with her father and brothers because she is a girl, Bessie learns about women's rights when she attends a suffrage rally led by Susan B. Anthony.
Gold rush dogs
Illustrated with historical black and white photos and based on intrpid historical resources, this is a titles no dog-loving Alaskan child will want to miss.