from the Miss Pickerell children's science fiction series, although only four of them were published in her lifetime. She left sufficient notes on planned future novels to enable Dora Pantell to write and publish Miss Pickerell books, the last one, Miss Pickerell and the Lost World, appearing in 1986. Miss Lavinia Pickerell is an unlikely heroine: prim, spinsterly, angular and stiff, wearing old‑fashioned clothes and an outlandish hat, and devoted to her pet cow, she nevertheless manages to inadvertently stowaway on a rocket to Mars in her first adventure. But with her common-sense, practicality, and unflappable demeanor she manages to bring each adventure to a satisfactory conclusion. She is every child's favorite maiden aunt, and is possibly modeled after MacGregor herself. The series resembles others that are written by other writers long after the deaths of their creators, such as Tom Swift and Nancy Drew. But only one other author has written in the Miss Pickerell "universe" for publication, Dora Pantell, who was also responsible for bringing other Ellen MacGregor-conceived projects to completion. Later writers who indicated that Miss Pickerell had been either an influence or a favorite include such authors as Harry Turtledove, Susan Page Davis, and Sam Riddleburger. Science in Miss Pickerell MacGregor included valid scientific facts in her Miss Pickerell books. Some of the topics she addressed were weightlessness in space travel, atomic energy and carbon-14 dating, nuclear-powered submarines and the continental shelf, the "bends" affecting divers who surface too rapidly, and many others. To Mars, to the Arctic, above the ground or below, Miss Pickerell is dauntless, intrepid, and eager. It's all good fun, but with a bonus. The scientific basis of each of the Miss Pickerell stories is scrupulously accurate. Although she was careful not to overburden her fragile plots with didactic passages explaining gravity, radiation, etc. Ellen MacGregor managed very skillfully to incorporate a good deal of information that a child reader could absorb almost without realizing it. With rare judgement, she gauged just how much to present to the 8-12’s who are Miss Pickerell's audience. A clear picture in bald outline, rather than a mass of confusing and discouraging detail, is most apt to appeal to and instruct that active age group. References External links 20th-century American novelists American science fiction writers American women novelists 1906 births 1954 deaths People from Kent, Washington Novelists from Washington (state) American women journalists Women science fiction