Doris Orgel Collection

Doris Orgel was born Doris Adelberg in Vienna on February 15, 1929, the daughter of Ernst and Erna Adelberg. She had an older sister, Charlotte. In the spring of 1938, she and her sister had to leave their school to attend a school for Jews only. In August 1938 the family escaped Vienna for Zagreb, Yugoslavia, then went to London, England, and then to the English countryside in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, before arriving in New York in 1939.

The family spent the year 1940 in St. Louis, Missouri, where they had relatives, then returned to New York City in 1941. Doris’s eighth-grade teacher, Mrs. Elmendorf, encouraged her to write. After graduating from Hunter College High School, Doris began attending Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1946. There as a first-year student she met Harvard senior Shelley Orgel, who became a psychoanalyst. In 1948 she transferred to Barnard College in New York City, from which she graduated cum laude. Doris and Shelley Orgel married in 1949. Although Doris Orgel worked in publishing after graduation, she stopped working outside the home to raise the couple’s three children: Paul, Laura, and Jeremy.

In the 1950s Doris Orgel worked writing book reports for publishers such as McGraw Hill and book reviews for various publications. While her children were small, she began to write stories for children, starting with translations of German fairy tales. Her first published book was a translation of Wilhelm Hauff’s Dwarf Long-Nose, which won the Lewis Caroll Shelf Award in 1960. Her first four books were illustrated by Maurice Sendak. She would go on to have published 58 books in total, for ages ranging from picture books through novels for early and middle grades as well as young adult novels. A number of her books won awards: Sarah’s Room (1963) was named one of The New York Times’ best 100 books; Little John (1972) won Book World’s Children’s Spring Festival Book Prize, first prize for picture books; A Certain Magic (1976) won the American Library Association (ALA)’s Notable Book; Merry, Merry, Fibruary (1977) won the New York Times Best Illustrated Books Award. She wrote some books for younger readers as a staff writer for Bank Street College’s Writers Lab.

In 1978 her semi-autobiographical young adult novel The Devil in Vienna was published, which featured a protagonist who was a composite of Doris herself and her sister and told the story of a Jewish family’s experiences of the annexation of Austria and of the protagonist’s close friendship with a non-Jewish friend whose parents were Nazis. This novel won the Golden Kite Award, the ALA Notable Book Award, the Association of Jewish Libraries Notable Award, the Phoenix Honor Award, the Sydney Taylor Award, and the Child Study Children’s Book Committee at Bank Street Award, among other honors and awards. In 1988 the book was made into the television film A Friendship in Vienna, produced by the Disney channel. The book was published in Germany under the title Ein blauer und ein grüner Luftballon by Bertelsmann press and as Der Teufel in Wien by Rowohlt press. It was a finalist for the German Youth Literature Prize in 1981 and was excerpted for German radio for Kinderfunk (on Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor) and for Schulfunk und Bildungsprogramme (on Westdeutscher Rundfunk).

Some of her earliest published works were translations and retellings of German fairy and folktales, before focusing on her own original stories. In addition to The Devil in Vienna, Doris Orgel’s book A Certain Magic is a novel that focuses on a story about an Austrian-Jewish refugee. Many of her books for younger and middle-grade readers deal with themes common to children, like relationships between family members, childhood friendships, and stories about pets and animals. Doris Orgel wrote two original young adult novels: Risking Love (1985) and Crack in the Heart (1989); both deal with young adult romantic relationships and family dynamics, with Risking Love additionally focusing on psychotherapy, and Crack in the Heart addressing the topic of drug use. Among her many translations of German-language stories and books are two young adult novels, both by David Chotjewitz: Daniel Half-Human (2000) and Crazy Diamond (2005).

A prominent theme among Orgel’s later books were retellings of the stories of ancient Greek mythology, in particular the stories of Greek goddesses. In addition to authoring her own books she wrote many short stories, especially for Cricket Magazine and Parents’ Magazine, as well as book reviews of children’s books for several publications, including The New York Times and Kirkus Reviews. She also conducted writing workshops for both adults and children.

In 2019, she moved from New York City to Portland, Oregon, where she passed away on August 4, 2021.