Clyde Robert Bulla Papers

On January 9, 1914, Clyde Robert Bulla was born to a farming family just outside of King City, Missouri. Brought up by parents encouraged his interest in music and reading, this farmer's son nonetheless spent hours in the fields at hard physical labor. Only when he finished his work could young Bulla retreat to his room and write, staying up long after everyone else went to bed. The rural environment that Bulla matured in put a premium on physical labor and imposed isolation on the young boy, yet this only impelled Bulla to exercise his imagination more often as he interpreted his world. To feed his imagination and relieve the monotony of farm life, Bulla turned to music quite early, and he conceived a special passion for opera; its stories of exotic places, costumes, and people intrigued him.

Bulla's desire to write grew as he did. At age seven he had begun writing stories, though he told his family little about his efforts. As a young boy, he entered an essay contest and won a one-dollar prize. This tangible success made him feel like a writer, he later said. After one year at the King City High School (1926-1927) he dropped out and finished his degree by correspondence. In the meantime, he read popular magazines voraciously and patterned his own stories after his reading.

Between 1927 and 1946 he continued working on the family farm and writing. In 1934 he made his first sale---a love story to a women's magazine. Then he joined a group of other writers throughout the country who read and critiqued each other's manuscripts. Through this circle of contemporaries Bulla met Emma Thibodaux, an elementary school teacher and published children's author who proved important to Bulla's career. In 1941, Bulla published These Bright Young Dreams and felt some degree of success, but his publisher declared bankruptcy before Bulla ever saw any royalties.

When World War II erupted, Bulla volunteered for service but failed the physical exam. Then his mother became ill and the family moved back to King City where he worked as a linotype operator for the Tri-County News. On weekends he wrote short stories and spoke to Thibodaux, who encouraged him to write children's books. He finally agreed and wrote about the adventures a brother and sister had with a donkey and a cart on their farm. After some initial rejections, Thibodaux showed his work to author Lois Lenski, who passed it on to Elizabeth Riley of T. Y. Crowell. Riley published the manuscript as The Donkey Cart (1946) with illustrations by Lenski. Although he was proud of Donkey Cart, Bulla continued to think of himself as an adult author. To his astonishment, Riley asked him when he would send another manuscript. Riding the Pony Express followed, and Bulla embarked on his career as a children's author.

A year after his parents' death, Bulla moved to a suburb of Los Angeles. He began writing two books a year for Crowell in a working relationship with Riley, with whom he worked until her retirement. Bulla traveled widely during this time, visiting the American West, Britain, Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, China, Australia, Japan, and Indonesia. From these travels came the inspiration for many books, including Eagle Feather, The Sword in the Tree, Mika's Apple Tree, and New Boy in Dublin.

In all this, Bulla continued a practice that typifies all his work. He spent a great deal of time preparing to write a story. To identify with his characters, Bulla carefully researched the people, time, place and cultural background of his protagonist. In doing so, he acquired a vivid, concrete picture of the setting in which the character lived and conveyed those mental images in words.

Bulla also maintained his longstanding interest in music and even collaborated on songs for children with Lois Lenski. Among some of his more ambitious works are those that converted stage operas into simple narratives for children as a way to introduce them to the standard operas: Stories of Favorite Operas, Stories of Wagner's Niebelung Operas, and Stories of Gilbert and Sullivan Operas.

Bulla's admirers generally lauded his simple style and his ability to marry poetic sense to his prose. As a poet might, Bulla selected words and images that convey both feeling and meaning. For instance, about a house Bulla wrote, "No one lived there now. The windows were broken, and weeds grew in the yard." Whatever his critics said, Bulla remained popular among children, and we can safely say that they were his most important critics.

Clyde Robert Bulla passed away in 2007.

Sources:

Twentieth-Century Children's Writers (1989), pp. 150-152.

Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults(1993), pp. 370-373.

Authors and Illustrators of Children's Books (1972), pp. 28-40.