About The Author
KATHERINE PATERSON(1932- )
Three time Newbery award-winning author Katherine Paterson calls herself a gypsy. She has lived in three countries and many states. She doesn't feel she has a home in that sense, so to her, she doesn't have a place out of which stories naturally come.
These sentiments come from an author whose writing in every aspect, not only setting, seems to come very naturally.
Characters in Paterson's Newbery Honor book The Great Gilly Hopkins and Newbery Medal novels Jacob Have I Loved and Bridge to Terabithia totally belong where they are. And where they are is where she has spent a good part of her life, in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. These are her recent works, though. Earlier novels: The Sign of the Chrysanthemum,Of Nightingales That Weep, and The Master Puppeteer are set in Japan, where she attended and taught school in the 1950's.
She doesn't think you have to fight dragons to write books, but to live deeply the life you've been given. Her deeply-lived life has taken her all over the world. She spent her early childhood in China, where her father was a missionary. During World War II, she was evacuated with her family. They came to live in various parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia, where Katherine's odd clothes and British accent made heran outcast. As a result, she became an avid reader with a vivid imagination.
Katherine feels a book always grows out of who you are. You may wish it to be different, you might even pretend it to be different, but she insists the book will betray you. What you are will always come out in the book, she testifies. When asked what qualifies her to be a writer for children,she responds with the fact the she was once a weird little kid. She thinks that gives her a head start. Katherine has written a total of twelve books including those already mentioned and Lyddie (1991), The King's Equal (1992), and Flip-Flop Girl (1994). She and her Presbyterian minister husband, John Paterson, have four children who have provided her with much of the subject matter for her keenly observant stories of family life. She presently lives in Barre,Vermont.
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