Famous Authors

1
Famous Authors
2
Have You Read ...
3
Beverly Cleary

• Mrs. Cleary's books appear in over twenty
  countries in fourteen languages and her
  characters have delighted children for
  generations.

4
Patricia Polacco
Patricia Polacco uses the stories she learned
from her family as inspiration for the tales she
tells in her books. She also draws on the rich
cultural traditions she learned from both sides
of her family.
5
Donald J Sobol
Donald J. Sobol is an award-winning author
of more than 65 children's books. His
Encyclopedia Brown series was first published in
1963 and hasn't been out of print since.
6
Judy Blume
Judy Blume spent her childhood in Elizabeth, New
Jersey, making up stories inside her head. She
has spent her adult years in many places, doing
the same thing, only now she writes her stories
down on paper.
7
Seymour Simon
Seymour Simon is the author of 200 highly
acclaimed science books (over half of which have
been named Outstanding Science Trade Books for
Children by the National Science Teachers
Association). All of his books capture the
imagination and enthusiasm and interest of
children and encourage them to enjoy the world
around them, to learn--and to discover.
8
Gary Paulsen
Born May 17, 1939, Gary Paulsen is one of
America's most popular writers for young people.
Although he was never a dedicated student,
Paulsen developed a passion for reading at an
early age. After a librarian gave him a book to
read along with his own library card he was
hooked. He began spending hours alone in the
basement of his apartment building, reading one
book after another.
9
Paula Danziger
She wrote over 25 books, traveled to more than 15
countries, and was the kind of colorful character
you might find in one of her books. She loved to
play, make new friends, and wear purple clothes
and nail polish.
10
Betsy Byars
Betsy began her writing career five years after
her graduation by publishing short magazine
articles. As she began to read to her children,
her interest in writing for young people began.
Betsy lives with her husband Ed on an air strip
in South Carolina. They are both pilots, and the
bottom floor of their house is a hangar so they
can taxi out and take off, almost from their
front yard.
11
Joanna Cole
Joanna Cole was born in Newark, New Jersey on
August 11, 1944. As she grew up in that state she
called herself "the family gardener." She loved
to plant flowers and catch insects and daydreams
in her garden.
12
Virginia Hamilton
I've been a writer all my life, since the time I
was a child in grade school, when I first learned
to scribble down sentences describing the
pictures in my head. Both of my parents enjoyed
reading and were gifted storytellers. My mother
Etta Belle, had a way with words. So did her
sisters, my aunts. Being the youngest of five
children, as a kid I spent a good amount of time
listening to grown-up women talking.
13
Louis Sachar
I was born in East Meadow, New York on March 20,
1954 and lived there until third grade. My dad
worked on the 78th floor of the Empire State
Building, and maybe that somehow inspired Wayside
School, who knows?
14
Jerry Spinelli
Having had a house full of children, six to be
exact, Jerry Spinelli has a wealth of real life
characters and situations to draw upon. He is
also gifted with the ability to recall his own
childhood and turn those memories and experiences
into marvelous books for young readers.
15
Mildred D. Taylor
The telling of family stories was a regular
feature of Taylors family gatherings. Family
storytellers told about the struggles relatives
and friends faced in a racist culture, stories
that revealed triumph, pride, and tragedy. The
stories inspired Taylor, and she still has a
vivid recollection of the storytelling sessions.
16
E. B. White
Leading American essayist and literary stylist of
his time. White was known for his crisp,
graceful, relaxed style. "No one can write a
sentence like White," James Thurber once stated.
White's stories ranged from satire to children's
fiction. While he often wrote from the
perspective of slightly ironic onlooker, he also
was a sensitive spokesman for the freedom of the
individual.
17
Jean Craighead George
                          I write for
children. Children are still in  love with the
wonders of nature, and I am too. So I tell them
stories about a boy and a  falcon, a girl and an
elegant wolf pack, about owls, weasels, foxes,
prairie dogs, the  alpine tundra, the tropical
rain forest. And when the telling is done, I hope
they will  want to protect all the beautiful
creatures and places.
18
Phyllis Reynolds
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor said the hardest part of
being a writer is focusing only on the book she
is currently writing. She constantly comes up
with new ideas and characters. Every time she
gets a new book idea, she puts the title of the
book on a three-ring binder. As she thinks up
characters and scenes for that book, she jots
them down in the notebook. She usually has about
ten of these idea notebooks on her shelf while
she is writing a book.
19
Laura Ingalls Wilder
When LAURA INGALLS WILDER started writing her
classic "Little House" book series in 1932, she
had no idea of creating fame for herself or the
places where she had lived. She wrote simply to
preserve tales of a lost era in American history,
the pioneer period she vividly recalled from her
growing-up years on the Midwestern frontier in
the 1870's and 1880's.
20
Jane Yolen
After college, I moved to New York City and
became an editorwriting during lunch breaks and
evenings and weekends. I considered myself a poet
and a journalist/nonfiction writer. But to my
surprise, I became a childrens book writer,
selling my first book on a cold February day. My
22nd birthday, as a matter of fact.
21
Barbara Cooney
It was not until I was in my forties, in the
fifth decade of my life, that the sense of place,
the spirit of place, became of paramount
importance to me. It was then that I began my
travels, that I discovered, through photography,
the quality of light, and that I gradually became
able to paint the mood of place
22
David Adler
As a child I was known as the family artist.
Paintings and drawings I did when I was as young
as twelve still hang in my parents' home. And I
was creative. I drew funny signs that I taped
around the house. I made up stories to entertain
my younger brothers and sisters. I'm still making
up stories."
23
Jan Brett
As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an
illustrator and spent many hours reading and
drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet
of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the
pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to
recreate that feeling of believing that the
imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The
detail in my work helps to convince me, and I
hope others as well, that such places might be
real."