Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has published more than 135 books, never writing the same type of book twice in a row. She has written mysteries, historical fiction, Wild West yarns, scary tales, and memoirs. Watch the interview to learn more...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Meg Medina
Meg Medina is an award-winning Cuban American author who writes picture books, middle grade stories, and young adult fiction. Watch the interview to learn more about her and read a short biography about her life. Includes an interview...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Sid Fleischman
Sid Fleischman has written dozens of books for children. It took him more than 10 years to complete his award-winning book, The Whipping Boy. His ideas can spring from anywhere. The 13th Floor, a time travel story, was inspired by the...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Susan Cooper
Susan Cooper's works weave rich language and contemporary issues with fantasy, history, and traditional literature to create compelling, timeless picture books and young adult novels. In this interview, Cooper talks about becoming a...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Beverly Cleary
In this video [18:07], Beverly Cleary answers a baker's dozen out of 500 questions submitted by her readers. Listen in as Mrs. Cleary talks about her favorite teddy bear, where the character Ralph came from, the pleasures of reading and...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Cece Bell
Meet Cece Bell, the award-winning author/illustrator of children's books including the Rabbit and Robot stories, the Sock Monkey series, and the graphic novel memoir, El Deafo, which won a Newbery Honor and the Geisel Award in 2015....
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Christopher Paul Curtis
Christopher Paul Curtis only became a published author in his 40's. Before that, he worked in an automobile factory, which became so unbearable that he began having semi-hallucinations at night of car doors and assembly lines moving...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Lynne Rae Perkins
Lynne Rae Perkins writes and illustrates picture books for young children and novels for middle and high school kids. Her stories explore family, friendships, and the many small but meaningful moments that shape childhood and...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Linda Sue Park
Linda Sue Park is the Newbery Award-winning author of A Single Shard. In this video interview, she compares writing to sports, questions animal sounds among different countries, and says that young writers need to practice writing. Watch...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Lois Lowry
Lois Lowry has written more than 30 books for children and young adults in genres ranging from contemporary fiction to historical fiction to fantasy to autobiographical. Some of Lowry's books are light-hearted, but others deal with...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Katherine Applegate
Katherine Applegate is the author of many books for young readers. In this interview, Applegate talks about life-changing books for reluctant readers (including kids with dyslexia), writing "first-person gorilla", tackling tough topics,...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Katherine Paterson
Katherine Paterson is the Newbery Medal-winning author of Jacob Have I Loved and Bridge to Terabithia. In this interview, she talks about her childhood, raising a family, the challenges and joy of writing historical fiction, the...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Kate Di Camillo
Kate DiCamillo's books have won numerous awards. Well-known titles include Because of Winn-Dixie (which became a Hollywood film), The Tale of Despereaux, and Flora and Ulysses. But her success did not happen overnight. Before the public...
Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: Author Interviews: Jack Gantos
Jack Gantos' interesting life has provided the raw material for many of his books. Rotten Ralph, for example, was inspired by an aggressive red cat that he once owned. The Jack Henry middle-grade fiction series was based on Gantos' own...