Shannon's mother says she was a storyteller from birth, jabbering endlessly in nonsensical baby-talk. Once she could speak, she made up stories and bribed younger siblings to perform them in mini-plays until, thankfully, an elementary...

A former actress, Emma Walton Hamilton worked in theater, film, and television for 10 years before turning her attention to directing, producing, educating and writing. She is one of the founders of Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New...

Heiligman was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania and lived in the same house her entire childhood. One of her favorite school memories is of her fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Ryan, who created magical reading nooks for her students - like an...

Phillip Hoose is the author of books, essays, stories, songs, and articles, including the National Book Award winning book, Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice.

Deborah Hopkinson was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. From an early age she was an avid reader, even hiding her own books inside the school textbooks she was supposed to be reading in class. History and science were her favorite school...

Norton Juster was born in 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, and spent his childhood there. Juster, the son of an architect, went on to study architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

Since she was a young girl, Kathleen Krull has always known that she wanted to be a writer. In the second grade she wrote short stories and poems. At age ten, she wrote a book called "Hair-Do's and People I Know". As a teenager, she...

Earl Bradley (E.B.) Lewis was born on December 16, 1956, in Philadelphia, PA. Inspired by two uncles who were artists, Lewis began taking art classes while he was still in elementary school and developed a particular interest in...

Grace Lin grew up in Upstate New York with her parents and two sisters. While the other sisters became scientists, Grace became an artist. After attending the Rhode Island School of Design, Grace began working on children's books. Her...

Lois Lowry was born in the Territory of Hawaii in 1937, but spent much of her childhood in her mother's hometown in Pennsylvania. During World War II, Lois' father served abroad as an army dentist. After the war, the entire family moved...

David Lubar was born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey. His mother was a school librarian so he spent lots of time at the school library.

Leonard Marcus is one of the most respected writers and historians of children's literature. His critically acclaimed books have looked at Caldecott winners, the history and impact of Golden Books, fantasy writers, and the lives of other...

Patricia McKissack was born in 1944, in Smyrna, Tennessee. After moving around a bit, when she was 12 she and her family finally settled in Nashville. It was there that Patricia first met the then 17-year-old Fredrick. The two friends...

Sy Montgomery is a lifelong explorer: she has made four trips to Peru and Brazil to study the pink dolphins of the Amazon; and on other expeditions, she was chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire; bitten by a vampire bat in Costa...

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was born in 1933 in Anderson, Indiana, growing up during the Great Depression. Her parents shared theatrical read alouds with Naylor and her siblings every evening, well until her teen years. These shared stories,...

Kadir Nelson is a naturally gifted artist whose extraordinary talent continues to develop and be discovered. Before the age of 30, Nelson had already illustrated children's books, sold paintings to celebrities, and worked on a movie...

Linda Sue Park, Korean American author of children's fiction, has been an avid reader and writer her entire life. In fact, she began poetry and story writing before kindergarten - at the age of four. Growing up outside of Chicago, one...

As the daughter of two missionaries, Katherine Paterson spent the first five years of her life in China. When the Japanese invaded during World War II, her family returned to the United States. By the age of 18, Paterson had moved over...

Rodman Philbrick was raised in New England - he was born in Boston in 1951 and grew up in a small town on the coast of New Hampshire, where his grandmother rented out cottages to summer visitors.

Tamora Pierce was born in Fayette County Pennsylvania, in 1954. Her father worked for the telephone company while her mother went to college for her degree in English, intending to become a teacher. Pierce grew up surrounded by books -...

Rick Riordan was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1964. His mom, dad, and grandparents were all teachers. Rick didn't like to read much until he discovered the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Greek and Norse mythology in middle school. In the...

Pam Munoz Ryan was born in Bakersfield, California, in 1951. With half of her family from Mexico and the other half from Oklahoma, Munoz Ryan jokes that she grew up eating enchiladas one weekend and fried chicken the next. She was the...

From the time Brian Selznick was a young boy, it was clear that he had a gift for drawing. On his kindergarten report card, Brian's teacher noted that he was a good artist. At school Brian's classmates liked to gather around to see what...

Neal Shusterman was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Though he had lots of interests and aspirations in high school, he credits his ninth-grade English teacher, who challenged him to write a story a month for extra credit, with...