About The Author
ARMSTRONG SPERRY (1897-1976)
Armstrong Sperry was born on November 7, 1897 in New Haven, Connecticut. As a boy, he liked to draw pictures and write stories. His great-grandfather, Sereno Armstrong, was a sea captain, and the young Sperry was fascinated with his tales of Bora Bora in the South Seas Islands.
Sperry attended the Yale Art School and then joined the Navy and served in World War I. After his tour of duty ended, he enrolled at the Art Students League in New York City. Remembering his grandfather’s tales, and a book by Frederick O’Brien called White Shadows in the South Seas, Sperry finally traveled on a sailing schooner from Tahiti to Bora Bora in June 1941. He lived on Bora Bora for several months, and used the information he learned about the island and its Polynesian inhabitants as background for several books, including Call It Courage. Sperry returned from Bora Bora and lived in Connecticut with his wife and children,where he wrote and illustrated many children’s books.
In September 1924 he again traveled to the South Pacific, returning home in June 1925. Sperry also took an automobile trip over the old Santa Fe Trail and later wrote books set in the American Southwest.
In 1940 Sperry won the Newbery Award for Call It Courage, which was his ninth book for children. Armstrong Sperry died in April 1976. Many of Sperry’s books are now out of print, but titles may be found at used or antique bookstores.
The following is a partial listing of his works:
One Day with Manu, Philadelphia, Winston, 1933
One Day with Jambi in Sumatra, Philadelphia, 1934
Wagons Westward: The Old Trail to Santa Fe Philadelphia, 1935
Call It Courage New York, Macmillan, 1942
Thunder Country New York, Macmillan, 1952
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