Suzanne Wise Hawley died at the age of eighty-two on December 16, 2026 in Jacksonville, Florida. Six weeks before her death she was pruning bushes in her garden. When diagnosed with cancer just days later, she looked death in the eye squarely and courageously. She was predeceased by her husband of 56 years David Lee Hawley, and is survived by two sons, Peter Hawley (Christina Deoudes), 60, of Sea Girt, N.J., and Mark Hawley, 57, of Naples, FL; and two brothers, Richard S. Wise (Joyce) of Richmond, VA, and H. Alexander Wise (Carrington) of Memphis, TN, and numerous beloved nieces and nephews.

“Suzy” was born Suzanne Marcy Wise on May 24, 1943, to Henry and Mary Alice Wise of Watertown, NY. She was the darling of her parents and of her three brothers – her older brother Anderson (deceased) and her younger brothers Richard and Alex. She was an athlete, a student leader, and the spark of any group at Watertown High School. She attended college at Randolph Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, VA, and received her B.A. in English in 1964 from the University of Rochester, where her husband was working on a Ph.D. in English before embarking on an Air Force Career.

Suzy was a devoted wife and mother. She made the best of every posting, whether her husband was in Colorado, Texas, Florida, or Washington with the family, or whether he was overseas in Vietnam or Yemen, leaving her to raise the boys as a single mother for a time. Everyone knew Suzy could “get it done.”

Suzy’s life was marked by a love of books. When her husband was stationed in San Antonio, TX, Suzy earned her MA in Library Science from Trinity University. She spent years as a school librarian in Texas, Florida, and Virginia. When her husband retired to Florida, she taught young adult literature at the University of South Florida in Tampa as well a serving as a resource specialist for the Collier County school district. She was selected by the American Library Association to serve on the 1993 Newbery Award Selection Committee to choose “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” That same year, the Brodart Company asked her to join its team to select children’s and young adult materials for library collections, a role she enjoyed for more than thirty years until her death.

Suzy had previously been an Adjunct Professor of Children’s Literature and Young Adult Literature at Florida’s Gulf Coast University (1997-2004) and of Literature in Childhood Education at the University of South Florida (1994-1997). She served as a School Library Media Specialist for 20 years at Gunston Elementary School, in Lorton, VA (1980-1989), at Egypt Lake Elementary School, in Tampa, FL (1989-1990), at Vineyards Elementary School, in Naples, FL (1990-1993) and at Laurel Oak Elementary School, in Naples, FL (1993-2000).

A graduate of the Our Lady of the Lake University’s (TX) Master’s in Library Sciences program, she also obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Rochester (NY) and a post-graduate Library Certification K-12 from Our Lady of the Lake University.

She also worked for years with her college classmate Margaret Holt, first with Holt Learning, a full-service corporate training and education firm based in New York and later Hawley – Holt Senior Living Advisors.

In addition to her passion for juvenile literature, she was an animal lover. Anyone who knew her even a little heard about her bulldogs.

For anyone wanting to make a tribute in Suzy’s honor, you could make a donation to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library which aims to place books in the homes of young readers everywhere or to the Coco & Tubbs French and English Bulldog Rescue of south Florida at https://bestfriends.org/donate - two causes near to Suzy’s heart. We were all lucky to have such a bright star in our lives.