Books with author Dean Merrill

The Pushcart War is a popular children's novel by the American writer Jean Merrill, illustrated by Ronni Solbert[1] and published by Harper & Row in 1964. It is Merrill's best known work.[1] The story is written in the style of a historical report from the future, looking back at the earlier events of a "war" on the streets of New York City between trucking companies and pushcart owners who use pea shooters as weapons to disrupt the trucks. Merrill said the idea for the novel brewed in her for several years while she lived in Greenwich Village.[1] She said the truck traffic there was oppressive and she fantasized about flattening the tires out with pea shooters.[1] She had an epiphany and thought that "What you feel about the trucks is what everybody feels about bullies," and from there she began writing the novel.[1] Merrill won a Fulbright Fellowship in 1965 for it.[1] It won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (1964)[2] and was a Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (1965).[3]