The Chalk Box Kid

Clyde Robert Bulla (1914-2007) was a 20th-century American author who wrote more than 60 books for young readers. Bulla grew up on a Missouri farm and attended a one-room schoolhouse. Even as a child, he loved writing, and he wrote his first book around the time he graduated from high school. After finishing high school, Bulla worked at a newspaper and kept writing books.

Bulla’s first published book was The Donkey Cart (1946). He went on to write many more children’s books, including The Sword in the Tree (1956), a book about a medieval boy who travels to Camelot to seek King Arthur’s help, and A Lion to Guard Us (1981), a story about a 1609 shipwreck near Bermuda. Historical fiction like this was a specialty of Bulla’s. He wrote about Vikings, pirates, and US heroes like Abraham Lincoln, among many other historical subjects.

Bulla also liked to write about scientific principles and the origins of things like Valentine’s Day. In 1985, he published A Grain of Wheat: A Writer Begins, a memoir aimed at young audiences. Bulla also wrote stories about contemporary children, mindful of choosing subject matter suitable for his young readers and taking seriously the responsibility of writing for an impressionable audience. While he did not generally write for adult audiences, in 1941, he tried his hand at writing an adult novel, but his publisher went bankrupt before These Bright Young Dreams could become successful.

Bulla was the first-ever winner of the Southern California Council on Children’s Literature Award, and his book Benito was named 1961’s outstanding juvenile book by The Authors Club of Los Angeles. Bulla died in 2007 at his Missouri home.