Lynne Reid Banks has died. A prolific author of books for both children and adults, Banks was best known as the writer of The Indian In The Cupboard and its various sequels—which, despite coming under increased scrutiny for their attitudes toward race and gender over the years, have been a long-time mainstay of children’s fiction ever since the first book was published back in 1980. Banks published dozens of novels for both young and adult readers across her long career, having first gained prominence with her 1960 adult novel The L-Shaped Room, about a young woman who finds herself single and pregnant in 1950s London. In her later years, Banks acknowledged many of the issues with her earlier writing—while also reveling at times at the ways old age allowed her to be “eccentric, self-indulgent — even offensive.” Per The New York Times, her death from cancer this week was confirmed by her literary agent. Banks was 94.
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Born in the U.K., Banks spent the years of World War II living in Canada, before returning to her homeland to work as an actor and TV journalist. Although she was working in television at the time, she found herself gravitating to the typewriter, and eventually produced The L-Shaped Room, which quickly became a success. (Including inspiring a film adaptation in 1962.) After marrying artist Chaim Stephenson, Banks moved with him to Israel for several years, where she taught on a kibbutz and eventually became a citizen.
Although Banks continued to publish novels for adults, she eventually had the biggest success of her career with The Indian In The Cupboard, which tells the story of a young boy named Omri who learns that he can bring plastic figurines—most notably, that of an 18th century Iroquois chief named Little Bear—to life by placing them in a cupboard and turning a key. The book received heavy praise at the time for its focus on empathy, with Omri forced to learn that the “little people” are actual human beings, and not toys—but has also been frequently challenged for its stereotypical depictions of Native Americans, with leaders of the American Indian Library Association placing it on a list of “Titles To Avoid” in 1991. The book was adapted into a film in 1995.
Although she never matched the popularity of Indian In The Cupboard again—and despite occasionally courting controversy by criticizing younger YA and kids authors for featuring, in at least one case, intimacy between LGBTQ characters—Banks continued to write for the next several decades of her life. Her last book, The Red Red Dragon, was published in 2022.