This Way to Christmas

Ruth Sawyer was the professional name of Ruth Sawyer Durand (1880-1970), an American writer of children’s books. She studied folklore and storytelling at Columbia University, where she got a B. S. in 1904. Sawyer travelled to Cuba in 1900 to teach storytelling to teachers organizing kindergartens for children orphaned during the Spanish-American War. Her first published work was The Primrose Ring in 1915. Her best-known book is Roller Skates (1936). Like Roller Skates, a number of Sawyer’s books are autobiographical accounts of her childhood and reveal an interesting perspective on American life at the end of the 19th century. Sawyer also wrote non-autobiographical novels for children, such as The Enchanted Schoolhouse (1956), and a scholarly work, The Way of the Storyteller (1942). She published a number of collections of folktales. In 1965, she was awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for her work. Her other works include: Doctor Danny (1918), Gladiola Murphy (1923), The Tale of the Enchanted Bunnies (1923), Picture Tales From Spain (1936), Year of Jubilo (1940) and The Year of the Christmas Dragon (1960).