June Cummins

June Cummins (1963–2018) was an American scholar of children's literature and a professor at San Diego State University. Her research included Jewish children's literature and diversity in children's publishing, and she wrote a biography of Sydney Taylor.

Early life and education

Cummins was born in New York City in 1963, and grew up in San Diego, California. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985, and went on to complete her Master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. in English at Columbia University between 1986 and 1998.

Career

Cummins was a professor of children's literature at San Diego State University from 1998-2018. She helped establish the National Center of the Study of Children’s Literature at SDSU, and served as its director.

Cummins served on the Children’s Literature Association Board of Directors and its Diversity Committee. She received the association’s Mentoring Award in 2017.

Cummins published on Jewish children’s literature and LGBTQ+ themes in young adult literature. Her work also examined the publishing and marketing of children’s books.

Cummins was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2015. With the assistance of historian Alexandra Dunietz, she completed From Sarah to Sydney: The Woman Behind "All-of-a-Kind Family", a biography of Sydney Taylor, which was posthumously published by Yale University Press in 2021. The book discusses Taylor’s life and her authorship of All-of-a-Kind Family, the first mainstream children’s book in the U.S. to feature Jewish characters. Cummins' biography of Taylor was favorably reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, American Jewish History, and other publications.

Selected publications

Personal life Cummins was married to Jonathan Lewis, a physicist, and had three children.

Death Cummins died on February 22, 2018, in Skokie, Illinois at age 54.

References

Further reading All-of-a-Kind : Remembering June Cummins. Edited by Michael Joseph, Lissa Paul, and Joseph Thomas. Cats in the Basement Press, 2020.