Author of over 400 Books for Children and Adults
Pictures by Vlasta Van Kampen Key-Porter 2008 ISBN# 1554700078 Key-Porter is a Canadian publisher, and this is how I got to them. My friend Jonathan Schmidt (and ex-editor at Tor) moved to Canada to be married and settle north of the border, and soon became head of trade books there. He introduced me to the …
I hadn’t planned to write a third book of the Dales, after Sister Light and White Jenna. In fact, I killed off all the main characters in White Jenna so I wouldn’t have to write a trilogy. But there was this nagging question in my
This book was actually Ted Lewin’s idea. We had done two books of poetry already–“Bird Watch” and “Sea Watch”–and he wanted to do a book about the earliest ancestors of farmyard animals. He convinced Pat Gauch at Philomel to do the book and then they contacted me.
This gentle tone poem about a father taking his daughter (yes–it’s a girl!) out owling one cold wintry night is arguably my best book. Certainly it’s my best known book. The 1988 Caldecott Medal winner for John Schoenherr’s beautiful, frosty, tender, exacting pictures, the book has been translated into nine languages, been
This short novel has a long and complicated history. My agent was phoned by an editor at Scholastic wanting to know if I had any interest in a new series they were starting called HORRORS! It was to be novels based on old fairy tales brought up to date, with a frisson of terror
Lightyear Entertainment did an animated movie written by Doris Orgel and she wasn’t interested in turning the story of Pegasus into a book. I watched the movie and wasn’t interested in retelling her story either. So when
The second Piggins book to be published. I wrote the books about Piggins because I love mystery stories and am also a great fan of the Masterpiece Theater series called “Upstairs, Downstairs.” I also wrote them especially for Jane Dyer who showed me her amazing drawings and won me over with her delicious
The first Piggins book to be published. I wrote the books about Piggins because I love mystery stories and am also a great fan of the Masterpiece Theater series called “Upstairs, Downstairs.” I also wrote them especially for Jane Dyer who showed me her amazing drawings and won me over with
The third Piggins book to be published. I wrote the books about Piggins because I love mystery stories and am also a great fan of the Masterpiece Theater series called “Upstairs, Downstairs.” I also wrote them especially for Jane Dyer who showed me her amazing drawings and won me over with her delicious
Non-fiction about women pirates, including Anne Bonney and Mary Read (see Ballad of the Pirate Queens), this was my very first book. But it wasn’t the first time I’d written about women pirates. In fact I’d included two of them (Bonney and Read) in a little book I wrote in 7th grade. The greatest