May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture of African American heritage". She is the author of more than 20 books and founder of the "first African American children's book imprint at a major publishing company": Jump at the Sun at Hyperion Books for Children, the Disney Book Group (now Disney Publishing Worldwide). She is vice president and editor-at-large, Scholastic Trade Books. University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee has hosted two lectures. Two lecture titles allude to "The Secret Garden", a 1911 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture The May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture is an annual event sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a
Frances Hodgson Burnett stressed the age difference—Townsend was ten years younger than she—and she referred to him as her secretary. Biographer Ann Thwaite doubts he loved her. She claims at that time the 50-year-old Burnett was "stout, rouged and unhealthy". Thwaite believes Townsend needed her to help with his acting career and support him financially. Within months, in a letter to her sister, she admitted the marriage was in trouble. She described Townsend as scarcely sane and hysterical. Thwaite argues Townsend blackmailed her into the marriage: he wanted money from her and he wanted to control her as a husband. Unable to bear