Barbara Willard
Barbara Mary Willard was a British novelist best known for children's historical fiction. Her "Mantlemass Chronicles" is a family saga set in 15th to 17th-century England. For one chronicle, The Iron Lily (1973), she won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a book award judged by panel of British children's writers.
Willard was born in Brighton, Sussex on 12 March 1909, the daughter of the Shakespearean actor Edmund Willard and Mabel Theresa Tebbs. She was also the great-niece of Victorian-era actor Edward Smith Willard. The young Willard was educated at a convent school in Southampton.
Because of her family connections, Willard originally went on the stage as an actress and also worked as a playreader, but she was unsuccessful and a
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Elizabeth Janeway
American author and critic born Elizabeth Ames Hall. When her family fell on hard times during the Depression, Janeway was forced to end her Swarthmore College education and help support the family by creating bargain basement sale slogans (she graduated from Barnard College just a few years later, in 1935).
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Intent on becoming an author, Janeway took the same creative writing class again and again to help hone her craft. While working on her first novel, The Walsh Girls, she met and married Eliot Janeway, economic adviser to Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson (he was known as "Calamity Janeway" for his pessimistic economic forecasts).
The Janeways mingled with United States Supreme Court justices and many other lumina -
Mary Ray
Born to a teacher and his wife, Ray enjoyed learning about the ancient history of Greece, Rome, and Britain. While working at a variety of jobs and gaining a wealth of education, Ray also traveled widely. This travel enabled her to give extra life through realistic details to her books.
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An author of fourteen books and three plays, Ray's writing style often seemed stilted and formal. Thus, she often appealed more to adults than her intended young audience. However, her series about the Roman Empire will live on as significant in the historical fiction genre. Living with her cat, Phoebe, in Canterbury, England, Ray is currently working on science fiction for adults. -
Anne McCaffrey
Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction (Best Novella, Weyr Search, 1968) and the first to win a Nebula Award (Best Novella, Dragonrider, 1969). Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.
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In 2005 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named McCaffrey its 22nd Grand Master, an annual award to living writers of fantasy and science fiction. She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on 17 June 2006. She also received the Robert A. Heinlein Award for her work in 2007. -
George MacDonald
George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister. He became a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow-writer Lewis Carroll. In addition to his fairy tales, MacDonald wrote several works of Christian theology, including several collections of sermons.
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Sigrid Undset
Sigrid Undset was a Norwegian novelist whose powerful, psychologically rich works made her one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century. Best known for her medieval sagas Kristin Lavransdatter and The Master of Hestviken, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928 for her vivid portrayals of life in the Middle Ages, written with remarkable historical detail and emotional depth.
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Born in Denmark to Norwegian parents, Undset spent most of her life in Norway. After her father's early death, she had to forgo formal education and worked as a secretary while writing in her spare time. Her debut novel Fru Marta Oulie (1907) shocked readers with its opening confession of adultery and established her bold, realist style. -
Brian Jacques
Brian Jacques (pronounced 'jakes') was born in Liverpool, England on June 15th, 1939. Along with forty percent of the population of Liverpool, his ancestral roots are in Ireland, County Cork to be exact.
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Brian grew up in the area around the Liverpool docks, where he attended St. John's School, an inner city school featuring a playground on its roof. At the age of ten, his very first day at St. John's foreshadowed his future career as an author; given an assignment to write a story about animals, he wrote a short story about a bird who cleaned a crocodile's teeth. Brian's teacher could not, and would not believe that a ten year old could write so well. When young Brian refused to falsely say that he had copied the story, he was caned as "a l -
Elizabeth George Speare
I was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, on November 21, 1908. I have lived all my life in New England, and though I love to travel I can't imagine ever calling any other place on earth home. Since I can't remember a time when I didn't intend to write, it is hard to explain why I took so long getting around to it in earnest. But the years seemed to go by very quickly. In 1936 I married Alden Speare and came to Connecticut. Not till both children were in junior high did I find time at last to sit down quietly with a pencil and paper. I turned naturally to the things which had filled my days and thoughts and began to write magazine articles about family living. Then one day I stumbled on a true story from New England history with a character who
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Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer was a prolific historical romance and detective fiction novelist. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brother into the novel The Black Moth.
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In 1925 she married George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer. Rougier later became a barrister and he often provided basic plot outlines for her thrillers. Beginning in 1932, Heyer released one romance novel and one thriller each year.
Heyer was an intensely private person who remained a best selling author all her life without the aid of publicity. She made no appearances, never gave an interview and only answered fan letters herself if they made an interesting historical point. She wrote one novel using the pseudonym Stella Martin.
Her Georgian and -
Gary L. Blackwood
He grew up in rural Cochranton, Western Pennsylvania, where he attended school in a one room schoolhouse. He graduated with a B.A. in English from Grove City College in Pennsylvania. While a college student, Blackwood published his first short story, Cliffs of Gold, in Twelve/ Fifteen magazine.
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He has sold dozens of stories to children's magazines, and has published thirty-five novels and nonfiction books for adults, young adults and middle readers.
Blackwood is also a widely produced playwright. -
Erik Christian Haugaard
Erik Haugaard was born in Denmark and has traveled extensively in the United States, Italy, Spain, and Japan. Called "a writer gifted in the art of the storyteller" by the BOSTON GLOBE, he is internationally known for his accomplishments as a playwright, poet, and translator.
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Haugaard has written a number of acclaimed works for young adults that transport readers back to a time and place in history that placed upon children burdens nearly unimaginable to the contemporary North American adolescent. Religious strife, World War II, and feudal Japan are just some of the settings Haugaard has explored in his books, which usually feature a child whose hardships are made all the worse due to the loss of parents or other guardians. -
Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Eloise Jarvis McGraw was an author of children's books. She was awarded the Newbery Honor three times in three different decades, for her novels Moccasin Trail (1952), The Golden Goblet (1962), and The Moorchild (1997). A Really Weird Summer (1977) won an Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America. McGraw had a very strong interest in history, and among the many books she wrote for children are Greensleeves, Pharaoh, The Seventeenth Swap, and Mara, Daughter of the Nile.
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McGraw also contributed to the Oz series started by L. Frank Baum, writing with her daughter Lauren Lynn McGraw (Wagner) Merry Go Round in Oz (the last of the Oz books issued by Baum's publisher) and The Forbidden Fountain of Oz, and later writi -
Trenton Lee Stewart
Trenton Lee Stewart is the author of the award-winning, bestselling Mysterious Benedict Society series for young readers; The Secret Keepers, also for young readers; and the adult novel Flood Summer. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.
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Letters to the author may be sent to:
Trenton Lee Stewart
PO Box 251358
Little Rock, AR 72225 -
Linda Sue Park
Linda Sue Park is a Korean American author of children's fiction. Park published her first novel, Seesaw Girl, in 1999. To date, she has written six children’s novels and five picture books for younger readers. Park’s work achieved prominence when she received the prestigious 2002 Newbery Medal for her novel A Single Shard.
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Henry Winterfeld
Henry Winterfeld (born April 9, 1901, in Hamburg, Germany; died January 27, 1990, in Machias, Maine), also published under the pseudonym Manfred Michael. He was a German writer and artist famous for his children's and young adult novels.
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Madeleine A. Polland
Madeleine Polland (who also wrote as Frances Adrian) was born in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, on May 31, 1918.
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Madeleine was educated at Hitchin Girls' Grammar School, Herfordshire, from 1929 to 1937.
After leaving school, she served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, and shortly after leaving married Arthur Joseph Polland in 1946.
Madeleine Polland has written several books for children and many novels for adults. Her first book for young readers, CHILDREN OF THE RED KING, was published in the UK by Constable in 1960. -
Allen French
Allen French (28 November 1870-1946) was a historian and children's book author who did major research on the battles of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolutionary War. He was a founding member and president of the Thoreau Society.
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Born in Boston, French attended Harvard University for his undergraduate education.
Several of his children's books were illustrated by painter Andrew Wyeth. -
Frances Temple
Frances Temple grew up in Virginia, France, and Vietnam. About her third book she wrote, "The Ramsay Scallop is about our need for adventure and motion, for throwing in with strangers, trusting and listening. The story began to take form in northern Spain along pilgrim trails; was fed by histories, stories, letters, by the testimony of a fourteenthcentury shepherd, by the thoughts of today's pilgrims. Concerns echo across years-clean water, good talk, risks welcomed, the search for a peaceful heart. Traveling in Elenor's shoes, I found out how strongly the tradition of pilgrimage continues." Ms. Temple received many honors during her distinguished career. Her other critically acclaimed books for young people include: France Taste of Salt A
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Mary Ray
Born to a teacher and his wife, Ray enjoyed learning about the ancient history of Greece, Rome, and Britain. While working at a variety of jobs and gaining a wealth of education, Ray also traveled widely. This travel enabled her to give extra life through realistic details to her books.
Buy books on Amazon
An author of fourteen books and three plays, Ray's writing style often seemed stilted and formal. Thus, she often appealed more to adults than her intended young audience. However, her series about the Roman Empire will live on as significant in the historical fiction genre. Living with her cat, Phoebe, in Canterbury, England, Ray is currently working on science fiction for adults. -
Eleanore Myers Jewett
Eleanore Myers Jewett grew up in New York City and loved it, but spent every summer in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, where she was a member of a "summer gang" much like that in Cobbler's Knob. An old sea captain used to take them all out sailing, and she liked best to sit in front of the mast, reveling in the motion of the boat and the long sweep of the blue sea.
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After she grew up she taught for four years before she married a doctor and moved to upstate New York. She has two married daughters and three grandchildren. -
Elizabeth Janeway
American author and critic born Elizabeth Ames Hall. When her family fell on hard times during the Depression, Janeway was forced to end her Swarthmore College education and help support the family by creating bargain basement sale slogans (she graduated from Barnard College just a few years later, in 1935).
Buy books on Amazon
Intent on becoming an author, Janeway took the same creative writing class again and again to help hone her craft. While working on her first novel, The Walsh Girls, she met and married Eliot Janeway, economic adviser to Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson (he was known as "Calamity Janeway" for his pessimistic economic forecasts).
The Janeways mingled with United States Supreme Court justices and many other lumina -
Marguerite de Angeli
Marguerite de Angeli was an American writer and illustrator of children's books including the 1950 Newbery Award winning book The Door in the Wall. She wrote and illustrated twenty-eight of her own books, and illustrated more than three dozen books and numerous magazine stories and articles for other authors.
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E. Nesbit
Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit.
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She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later connected to the Labour Party.
Edith Nesbit was born in Kennington, Surrey, the daughter of agricultural chemist and schoolmaster John Collis Nesbit. The death of her father when she was four and the continuing ill health of her sister meant that Nesbit had a transitory childhood, her family moving across Europe in search of healthy climates only to r -
Ingri d'Aulaire
Ingri d'Aulaire (1904-1980) was an American children's artist and illustrator, who worked in collaboration with her husband and fellow artist, Edgar Parin d'Aulaire. Born Ingri Mortenson in Kongsburg, Norway, she studied art in Norway, Germany and France, and met Edgar Parin d'Aulaire when she was a student in Munich. They married in 1925, and immigrated to the USA shortly thereafter, settling in Brooklyn in 1929. After pursuing separate careers initially, the couple turned to illustrating children's books together, releasing their first collaborative effort, The Magic Rug, in 1931. They settled in Wilton, Connecticut in 1941, and lived there until their deaths in the 1980s. Awarded the 1940 Caldecott Medal for their picture-book biography
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Elizabeth Janet Gray
Elizabeth Janet Gray Vining was an American professional librarian and author who tutored Emperor Akihito of Japan in English while he was crown prince. She was also a noted author, whose children's book "Adam of the Road" won the Newbery Medal in 1943.
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Beth Hilgartner
Beth Hilgartner has published ten books. In addition to her writing, she is an Episcopal priest (now retired), a musician (recorders and voice), a musical editor (modern performing editions of relatively unknown 17th and 18th century composers), an equestrian (dressage), an accomplished knitter, and an avid gardener. She returns to the publishing scene with The Ivory Mask (which she promises, absolutely, is NOT the first book in a series!), after a prolonged absence during which other priorities bumped writing to the bottom of the To Do list. She lives in Vermont with her husband of 45 years, their two cats (Lewis and Clark) and her elderly dressage horse, Solace.
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Henry Winterfeld
Henry Winterfeld (born April 9, 1901, in Hamburg, Germany; died January 27, 1990, in Machias, Maine), also published under the pseudonym Manfred Michael. He was a German writer and artist famous for his children's and young adult novels.
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Eleanore Myers Jewett
Eleanore Myers Jewett grew up in New York City and loved it, but spent every summer in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, where she was a member of a "summer gang" much like that in Cobbler's Knob. An old sea captain used to take them all out sailing, and she liked best to sit in front of the mast, reveling in the motion of the boat and the long sweep of the blue sea.
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After she grew up she taught for four years before she married a doctor and moved to upstate New York. She has two married daughters and three grandchildren. -
Frances Temple
Frances Temple grew up in Virginia, France, and Vietnam. About her third book she wrote, "The Ramsay Scallop is about our need for adventure and motion, for throwing in with strangers, trusting and listening. The story began to take form in northern Spain along pilgrim trails; was fed by histories, stories, letters, by the testimony of a fourteenthcentury shepherd, by the thoughts of today's pilgrims. Concerns echo across years-clean water, good talk, risks welcomed, the search for a peaceful heart. Traveling in Elenor's shoes, I found out how strongly the tradition of pilgrimage continues." Ms. Temple received many honors during her distinguished career. Her other critically acclaimed books for young people include: France Taste of Salt A
Buy books on Amazon -
Erik Christian Haugaard
Erik Haugaard was born in Denmark and has traveled extensively in the United States, Italy, Spain, and Japan. Called "a writer gifted in the art of the storyteller" by the BOSTON GLOBE, he is internationally known for his accomplishments as a playwright, poet, and translator.
Buy books on Amazon
Haugaard has written a number of acclaimed works for young adults that transport readers back to a time and place in history that placed upon children burdens nearly unimaginable to the contemporary North American adolescent. Religious strife, World War II, and feudal Japan are just some of the settings Haugaard has explored in his books, which usually feature a child whose hardships are made all the worse due to the loss of parents or other guardians. -
Allen French
Allen French (28 November 1870-1946) was a historian and children's book author who did major research on the battles of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolutionary War. He was a founding member and president of the Thoreau Society.
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Born in Boston, French attended Harvard University for his undergraduate education.
Several of his children's books were illustrated by painter Andrew Wyeth. -
Julia Darrow Cowles
Historical children's book writer.
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She was the author of the Our Little Cousin from Long Ago series.