E.L. Konigsburg, Children’s Book Writer who “Dared to Disturb the Universe”

By Tami Richards | On April 15, 2025 | Comments (0)

Elaine Lobl Konigsburg, known as E.L. Konigsburg (February 10, 1930–April 19, 2013) was a prolific American writer and illustrator of books for children and middle grade readers.

In 1967, she published her first children’s book, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. That same year, her second book, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, was also published. (Photo above right by Ron Kunzman)

E.L. Konigsburg’s first book won the 1968 Newbery Honor, and her second won the 1968 Newbery Medal. Though not written at the same time, both were published the same year due to an interesting turn of events.

When school libraries received a substantial increase in funding, an enormous backlog of books was sent to the printing presses. After catching up with this backlog, the publisher printed both of Konigsburg’s books, making it possible for her to have two titles published in the same year.

As it turned out, both titles made the Newbery Medal list: a winner and a runner-up. Konigsburg was the only author to have ever achieved that milestone. In 1997 she won the Newbery for her 13th book, The View from Saturday.

With this award, Konigsburg joined Joseph Krumgold, Lois Lowry, Katherine Paterson, Elizabeth George Speare, and Kate DiCamillo as the only authors to win more than one Newbery. The Newbery Medal is an award granted each year by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children’s book.

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Early life and background

Elaine Lobl was born in New York on February 10, 1930, to Jewish-Hungarian parents Adolph and Beuhlah Klein Lobl. The family soon moved to Pennsylvania, where Elaine would spend a majority of her growing-up years in small mill towns such as Farrell, a company town that had formed when several steel mills converged in the South Sharon area in the early 20^th century.

At its peak in 1920, the population of Farrell was 15,586, but the time the Lobls moved there in the 1940’s, the population was steadily declining. Like many mill towns across the country during the Great Depression, there was less demand for steel; therefore fewer mill jobs. During WWII, production at the mills revved up to produce the steel used for making helmets, aircraft, ammunition, and myriad other products for the war.

The background to Elaine’s teen years was punctuated with a regular blast from industrial whistles and the thudding and scraping of metal against metal as the mills met the war’s demands. The Lobl family made their home above the store they maintained and, thanks to the resurgence of the steel industry, managed fairly well.

As a child, Elaine loved school so much that she felt that getting A’s was what she was best at in life. Because she wasn’t very good at music or sports, she was glad that those were only pass/fail classes, so that she could maintain her A’s. Elaine also loved to read. Her favorite books were the works of Jane Austen, as well as Frances Hodgson Burnett‘s The Secret Garden, and P.L. Travers‘ Mary Poppins. She often read in the bathroom, locking the door to extend her privacy.

Living above the family store, a random sulfuric whiff from the mill tingeing the air, Elaine wished she could find books to read with people like her, like her family – not just books with people who had maids and butlers and sophisticated language.

During the Depression, Elaine’s father lost his job, money was scarce, and the Lobl family moved in with relatives for a time. Elaine wished for books she could relate to. In high school, Elaine practiced her love for drawing and developed a passionate interest in science. She was the editor of the school newspaper and the valedictorian of her class.

Education and a love for science

From 1947 to 1948, Elaine worked as a bookkeeper for the Shenango Valley Provision Company, a meat plant in Sharon, Pennsylvania. There she met the man who would later become her husband, David Konigsburg, the brother of one of the owners. At this job, Elaine managed to earn enough money to pay tuition for her first year at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University).

She studied chemistry while working many odd jobs. She also learned how to apply for scholarships and how to receive work-study assistance, so she raise enough funds to pay for school. She graduated with honors with a BS in chemistry in 1952.

After graduation, Elaine married David Konigsburg before starting graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh. David’s work as an industrial psychologist drew the couple to Florida, and Elaine began teaching chemistry at a girls’ private school, where she discovered that she was more interested in what was going on in the students’ heads than inside the test tubes.

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Raising a family and stepping into writing

The Konigburgs had three children, and when the family moved to New York in the early 1960’s, the youngest daughter began school. Konisburg was left to ponder what to do with her newly found free time. She knew she wanted to do something creative and decided to give children’s book writing a try.

She wanted to write books for children around the ages of 8 to 12 because she felt it to be a time when children seek acceptance from their peers – both by being like everyone else and by being different from everyone else.

So, with pencil in hand, she drew her characters, wrote their stories, and found the path through reconciling these struggles faced by children.

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, and The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, were books about people like her own children and characters her own children could relate to. And, as it turned out, not just her own children, but many, children who were able to relate to E.L. Konigsburg’s characters – proven by the continued success of the books.

An inspiring speech: Daring to disturb the universe

In a 1986 talk at Florida Community College at Jacksonville, Konigsburg gave an inspiring presentation full of literary nuggets. In her speech, she included many astute scientific observations, but one of the larger takeaways from the talk was when she stated that those who dare to disturb the universe must first have the courage to disturb the neighborhood.

Though Konigsburg’s speech was punctuated with the creative processes involved in scientific exploration, it was nestled in the fantastic prose from the words of T.S. Eliot‘s famous poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, when he wrote:

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

It was Konigsburg’s observation that in order to disturb the universe, in order to do the human things that humans should do in their time on earth, they must engage their creative impulse. Konigsburg uses examples of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein to illustrate how people must often struggle against popular thought in order to accomplish what they know to the very core of themselves to be true.

In her speech, Konigsburg melded science and fantasy, blended Einstein’s microscope with Eliot’s meter, with poise and grace and intention, because “… any creative act disturbs the universe,” and disturbing the universe is a uniquely human thing to do, something that, perhaps, humans are supposed to do. Why else would humans be creative? Be it cooking, decorating, mathematical reasoning, arts, crafts, engineering, science, etc. humans are creative and, as logic dictates, should disturb the universe in their time on earth.

Konigsburg, then, was more than a writer and illustrator of award-winning children’s books. She was also an astute philosopher, historian, and speaker, reaching a level of noted genius not all writers achieve.

Konigsburg published a collection of her speeches in 1995, TalkTalk, a children’s book author speaks to grown ups. The topics range from why children’s books matter to where ideas come from to finding the courage to disturb the universe. The book is sprinkled with full-color images and immersed in many deeply expansive scientific and historical observations. A melding of science, philosophy, and art, it’s a true Elaine Lobl Konigsburg original.

E.L. Konigsburg passed away in 2013 at the age of 83. Her last children’s book was published in 2011, marking a forty-four-year span of a writing life. She wrote books that won prestigious awards, were translated into dozens of languages, and made into movies and plays. Her twenty-four books include nineteen novels (some of which she illustrated), two picture books (both illustrated by her), and three nonfiction books.

Contributed by Tami Richards, a history enthusiast and freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest. More of her work can be found here.

Further reading

Literary Ladies Guide

An archive dedicated to classic women authors and their work