(During her junior year in high school, sixteen-year-old R...)
During her junior year in high school, sixteen-year-old Robin begins to question her values and friendships as she finds herself being ousted from the most popular group in school.
(Gina Gari carries out a mysterious mission for her grandm...)
Gina Gari carries out a mysterious mission for her grandmother, shares a tender summer romance with a young Dutchman, and learns some crucial life lessons on a trip to Italy that she won in a yo-yo contest.
(A thought-provoking combination of humor, philosophy, and...)
A thought-provoking combination of humor, philosophy, and romance, The Adventures of Blue Avenger has something for every teenage reader (and even for a few smart adults).
(Blue Avenger Cracks the Code is a great stand-alone book ...)
Blue Avenger Cracks the Code is a great stand-alone book that will please Blue lovers grateful to see him back in action and will give teachers and parents a whole new way to interest young readers in Shakespeare.
(When David, a sixteen-year-old high school junior, decide...)
When David, a sixteen-year-old high school junior, decides to rename himself Blue Avenger, he suddenly becomes more confident as he takes on a new role as modern day hero for the little guy and champion for the underdog.
(Norma Howe, author of the beloved Blue Avenger books and ...)
Norma Howe, author of the beloved Blue Avenger books and a gleeful practitioner of comedic satire, could blend in a devilishly funny mix one (or maybe two) budding teenage romances, a psychic fair, a dead frog, a headful of cascading blond ringlets, glorious Las Vegas in all its glitz and sparkle - including Elvis and his hound dog, erupting volcanoes, and a Seeing-Eye-dog video poker player - with the dramatic back story of Princess Di in Paris, to portray an unlikely teen angel on a desperate mission to save a certain unknown girl from a certain unknown disaster.
Norma Howe was an Author of novels and stories for young adults. She was known as a Blue Avenger books series.
Background
Howe was born on February 7, 1930, in San Jose, California. She was the daughter of Daniel Nadeau and Josephine Evelyn DiVittorio. Her father worked nights for the railroad, so the children in the family were admonished to keep quiet around the house, as their father slept during the days. “No shouting, screaming, or door-banging was allowed,” she noted on her Web site. Howe’s mother was an Italian immigrant from a small Sicilian town who came to the United States as a young child; she only became a U.S. citizen when Howe was in elementary school. Later in her life, Howe’s mother wrote poetry and short articles for local newspapers and even crafted a never-published novel about the fortunes of a young Italian immigrant.
In 1939, at age nine, she appeared on stage as a jump-roping tap dancer at the World's Fair on Treasure Island, San Francisco. Howe had two brothers, one older and one younger. With the older one she played tennis, and with the younger, she was the built-in babysitter.
Education
Norma Howe attended Anne Darling Elementary School, Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School, and San Jose High School. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from San Jose State University. From first grade through college in San Jose, Howe’s favorite subject was always English. “I loved writing the required weekly essays and always got excellent grades,” she reported on her Web site. In high school, she took journalism classes, and worked on the school paper, along with the boy who would eventually become her husband, Bob Howe. In college, Howe majored in English, and was introduced to the work of masters such as William Thackery, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Sherwood Anderson, James T. Farrell, and John Dos Passos, “I wrote a few short stories in a required creative writing class in college,” she recalled, “and the thought crossed my mind that I might want to write more someday.” But as she grew up in the 1940s and 1950s, Howe was still imbued with the cultural ethos of the day. Her major dream was to one day become a good wife and mother.
During her third year in college, Norma married Bob Howe, whom she had known since seventh grade. After Bob received his teaching credentials, the couple moved to San Bernardino, California, where he began his high school teaching career. They spent several summers in San Jose taking classes at San Jose State University until Howe received her B.A. in English in 1959, while her husband obtained his M.A. degree.
During school years, Howe worked at a series of jobs to help pay her way. Even as a child of ten she was working in the fruit orchards that once filled the landscape of San Jose - this was long before the silicon chip had turned the area into the wall-to-wall condominiums and businesses of today’s Silicon Valley. Later she also worked in canneries, as a soda jerk at a drug store soda fountain, and as a part-time evening clerk in the circulation department of the San Jose Evening News, ready to explain to irate subscribers why their newspaper might not have arrived that afternoon.
After reading an article in a writer’s magazine about how to write for confession magazines, Howe tried her hand at it and sold her first story immediately. These stories were easy and fun to write even while caring for several toddlers, and Howe began to place them fairly regularly in magazines such as True Story and Modern romances at the going rate of three cents per word. Meanwhile, she promised herself that she would work on more serious literature once her children were older and she had more time.
The Howes moved to Sacramento, California, when Bob accepted a position with the California State Department of Education. In 1981 the couple went abroad for the first time. Italy, the ancestral home of her mother, remains a favorite among the countries she visits, and Italian scenes have made their way into three of her books.
Howe began writing her first novel on the day her youngest son received his driver’s license, inspired by the widely publicized “Scopes Two” trial she attended in Sacramento in 1981, at which her husband was called to testify. Once she finished the manuscript, she sent it off with a reader’s fee to the Scott Meredith Literary Agency in New York. A young associate there named Russell Galen told her he loved the book and quickly sold it to Houghton Mifflin. Galen and Howe have worked together ever since. "God, the Universe, and Hot Fudge Sundaes," Howe’s debut novel, tells about the hardest week in the life of sixteen-year-old Alfie. Readers and critics responded positively to this first effort by Howe. A reviewer for Booklist felt that "God, the Universe, and Hot Fudge Sundaes" was a “promising novel sure to have young adult appeal, especially to those going through their own religious questioning,” while a contributor to School Library Journal observed that Howe’s book is “a thought-provoking novel that should appeal to young adults.”
With her second novel, "In with the Out Crowd," Howe tackles the theme of peer pressure and the question of when it is appropriate for teens to begin sexual activity. Critics again responded warmly to Howe’s vision and humor. Carolyn Noah, writing in School Library Journal, maintained that Howe “tells a perceptive, entertaining story of a teen who chooses to stand apart from the in-crowd and enjoys it.” Remarking that there are many adolescent novels dealing with such issues of peer pressure, a reviewer for Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books wrote that Howe’s book “is just better than most of them; more smoothly written, with characters who have depth and who change and grow.”
With "The Game of Life" Howe lets her humorous imagination take over in a tale of Cairo Hays, a young woman who desperately needs to stop her older sister Heather, an astrology freak, from making the mistake of her life by marrying an abusive jerk who appears to be a professional protestor. Marilyn S. Burlington, reviewing this third novel in School Library Journal, called "The Game of Life" a “sparkling gem replete with nuggets of wit and wisdom,” while a reviewer for Publishers Weekly described it as a “rich, realistic portrait of a young woman’s life.”
For her fourth novel, "Shoot for the Moon," Howe travels farther afield than American suburbia. Bums went on to note that "Shoot for the Moon" is “an appropriate metaphor for a novel about growing up,” laced with “poignancy” and “conveying teen humor.“
Howe reprised her popular teen superhero in "Blue Avenger Cracks the Code."
Blending wry humor with unexpected ro¬mance, Howe serves up young adult novels that appeal on several levels. On her Web site she said: "For most of my life I've been interested in two philosophical questions: the conflict between faith and reason, and free will versus determinism. I tackled the faith versus reason problem in my first novel - God, the Universe, and Hot Fudge Sundaes - but I just couldn't figure out how to handle the topic of free will in a young-adult novel in a non-boring way. So I wrote about peer pressure ("In With the Out Crowd"), the foolishness of astrology and the randomness of life ("The Game of Life"), and the awakening of a young girl to the wonders of the world outside of her little sphere of existence ("Shoot for the Moon").
Finally, it was time to direct my thoughts to the question of free will. After many false starts, it occurred to me that I needed the humor to hold the reader's interest and a viewpoint that would allow me to assimilate it. Writing the book from the omniscient point of view seemed to be the answer. I could know and comment on all things, past, present, and future. I would start with my hero's conception and proceed from there. The idea of having my hero change his name to that of his cartoon creation came from real life. One of my sons met a friend at college who had done just that. (You'll find his assumed name - Pureheart - in the dedication of my book.) But I chose the name Blue Avenger, and this book, unlike my others, had a title before it was written: "The Adventures of Blue Avenger." I revised as I wrote, and the final draft was written in about 30 sittings spread over three or four months. It was so much fun to write I almost regretted getting to the final chapter.
Quotations:
"I have the feeling I have never really grown up. Somehow, I got stuck at about age thirteen. Maybe someday I'll get over that, but I doubt it. In the meantime, I'll see just how long I can get away with wearing my jeans and sweatshirt everywhere I go."
Membership
Norma Howe was a member of "Freedom from religion foundation."
Freedom from religion foundation
,
United States
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
Howe was short and called a tomboy.
Interests
Writers
William Makepeace Thackeray, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Sherwood Anderson, James T. Farrell, John Dos Passos
Sport & Clubs
tennis
Connections
Norma Howe married Robert Louis 'Bob' Howe. They had six children: Christine Lee Howe of Hamden, Connecticut, Jeanne Louise Howe of Sacramento, Robert Nathan Howe (Paula Howe) of Placerville, Ted Louis Howe (Alexandra Hewitt) of Sacramento, Patricia Ann Howe (David Ianziti) of Napa, and Everett William Howe (Isabella Furth) of San Diego. She had eight grandchildren, one niece, and one nephew.