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Kate Louise Brown

Kate Louise Brown (born May 8, 1857, died December 31, 1921, Adams, Mass.) was a children’s educator and author who wrote 17 works in 41 publications, in addition to poems, songs, and magazine articles. She is most well known for The Plant Baby and Its Friends, Little People, Alice and Tom, and Stories in Songs.

Brown was born in Adams, Massachusetts and had her first poem published in the newspaper at age 9. She has written many children’s scientific novels, poems, and periodical articles, many of which surround nature and botany themes. For example, her book The Plant Baby and Its Friends published in 1898 explains botany like the plant is a child. Brown believed in presenting advanced topics to children in an interesting way as a story, not in textbook form.

While she was most famous for her books, she also wrote poems for children (“Goddesses”, “The Return”, “Clappers”, “The Christ Clappers”) and music for kindergarten marching plays. Her poems were featured in children’s literature textbooks for school.

Early Life

Kate Louise Brown is the daughter of Edgar M. and Mary T. Brown. Brown was born in the Berkshire countryside of Massachusetts and grew up spending her time outside, flourishing her love for nature as she studied birds, animals, and plants.

After her first poem was published at 9, she was given a letter by the publisher to keep writing. This initial success drove her to begin writing plays and stories. She even began a weekly magazine alongside two children whose parents were authors. (NAME OF THIS MAGAZINE??)

As a child, she drew inspiration from “Ode to Evening,” “Cynthia,” and “Daffodils” which shaped her future poetry.

Adult Life

Her first novel was a story about southern life and slavery with the main protagonist dying at the end. Her later novels greatly contrast this story as she began writing about educational, religious, and science-based topics.

Brown’s adult life consisted of teaching and writing. During the day, she taught in association with famous children’s teachers of the 19th century: Elizabeth Peabody and Mary Tyler Peabody Mann. When she wasn’t teaching, she wrote novels, poems, articles, and songs. Some of her most popular novels help children interact with science and nature. Alice and Tom is a book of lessons that follows the lives of the two children and the interaction between nature and humans. She also contributed to religious magazines and periodicals. She composed textbooks for children’s writing and literature, like the Interstate Second Reader, and A Third Reader.

In the Plant Baby and Its Friends, the book is “To Sarah Louise Arnold,” a fellow children’s writer and grammar teacher, who also helped to found the Girl Scouts. Arnold has “The Little Seed” published in one of her textbooks, alongside a positive review of the Plant Baby in another textbook. Brown was very active in the educational community, as she was in the Author’s Club, and had many connection with famous writers.

Kate never married or had children of her own.

Death

Kate Louise Brown died at age 64 on December 31, 1921.