Place, Marian T
Entry updated 16 March 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1910-2006) Prolific US author of books for children who also wrote as Dale White and (a byline reserved for Westerns) R D Whitinger. She began to publish work of at least borderline genre interest with Brad's Flying Saucer (1969), in which the titular UFO that obsesses the young protagonist Brad may or may not be genuine. The young witches who star in the Witches children's fantasy or Science Fantasy sequence may perhaps be Aliens living on Earth like Zenna Henderson's People. Girl apprentice Witcheena in The Resident Witch (1970) takes on the eponymous job at a children's amusement park; the boy Witchard in The Witch Who Saved Halloween (1971) is troubled by the problem of air Pollution and researches this at school, while his mother seeks an uncontaminated world to which their people might relocate; both Witcheena and Witchard stow away aboard a Spaceship mission in The First Astrowitches (1984) in hope of contacting lost space explorers from a past witch expedition. In the Bigfoot tales Nobody Meets Bigfoot (1976) and The Boy Who Saw Bigfoot (1979 chap), the titular cryptid (see Apes as Human) is depicted as a gentle and unthreatening forest creature. Place has also published nonfiction [not listed below] about reported Bigfoot or Sasquatch sightings. [DRL]
Marian Templeton Place
born Gary, Indiana: 14 October 1910
died Portland, Oregon: 16 April 2006
works (selected)
series
Witches
- The Resident Witch (New York: Ives Washburn, 1970) [illus/Marilyn Miller: hb/]
- The Witch Who Saved Halloween (New York: Ives Washburn, 1971) [illus/Marilyn Miller: hb/]
- The First Astrowitches (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1984) [illus/Tom O'Sullivan: hb/]
Bigfoot
- Nobody Meets Bigfoot (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976) [Bigfoot: hb/]
- The Boy Who Saw Bigfoot (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1979) [chap: Bigfoot: pb/]
individual titles
- Brad's Flying Saucer (New York: Ives Washburn, 1969) [hb/]
links
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