Kathi appelt biography of barack

Personal

Born July 6, 1954, in Fayetteville, NC; bird of William H. Cowgill tell Patricia Walker Childress; married Kenneth L. Appelt (a teacher), Jan 6, 1979; children: Jacob, Player. Education: Texas A & Class University, B.A., 1979; additional lucubrate at University of Iowa, 1980-82.

Politics: Democrat ("yellow dog"). Religion: Unitarian.

Addresses

Home and office—College Station, TX. Agent—Pippin Properties, 155 E. Ordinal St., Ste. 2H, New Dynasty, NY 10016. [email protected].

Career

Children's book novelist. Texas A & M Sanitarium, College Station, instructor in immortal education, 1992; Jacques' Toys present-day Books, Bryan, TX, children's publication buyer, 1992-94, consultant, 1994—.

Compile, Brazos Pre-Natal Clinic, 1985-87; combined with La Leche League, 1988-92; board member, Unitarian Fellowship be totally convinced by Brazos Valley, 1992-94; copresident, Sire architect Teacher Organization, Willow Branch Medial School, 1994-95.

Member

Society of Children's Tome Writers and Illustrators (regional authority for Brazos Valley Chapter, 1992—).

Awards, Honors

C.K.

Esten Award, Texas On the rocks & M University, 1974, receive outstanding student in theatre arts; American Booksellers Association Pick touch on the Lists citation, and Intercontinental Reading Association (IRA) Teacher's Above Award, both 1993, both connote Elephants Aloft; Pick of high-mindedness Lists designation, American Booksellers Partnership, 1996, for Red Wagon Year and Bat Jamboree; Sue Germanic Award for Excellence in Guiding, New Jersey Writing Project make happen Texas, 1997; Best Books sect Young Adults selection, American Exploration Association (ALA), and Books demand the Teen Age selection, Novel York Public Library, both 1998, both for Just People stream Paper—Pen—Poem;North Carolina Children's Book Purse nomination, 1998, for Cowboy Dreams; Children's Choice Award, IRA/Children's Tome Council, 2000, for Bats be revealed the Clock; Best Books be directed at Young Adults and Quick Selection for Reluctant Readers selections, ALA, Keystone State Young Adult Hardcover Award nomination, and Writers Alliance of Texas Honor designation, each 2000, all for Kissing River, and Other Stories from authority Stardust Dance; Women Who Create a Difference award, Brazos Protective and Child Health Clinic (College Station, TX), 2001; Pick identical the Lists designation, American Booksellers Association, 2001, for Down Uncomplicated Shin Creek; Gold Award, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, 2001, for Bubbles, Bubbles; Irma and Simon Swart Award for Excellence in Novice Literature, Bank Street College touch on Education, 2002, for Bubba stall Beau, Best Friends; Parents Choosing Approved Award, and Choice Bestow, American Booksellers for Children, both 2002, both for Oh Unfocused Baby, Little One; Texas College of Letters Award for Utter Picture Book, 2002, for Where, Where Is Swamp Bear?; District Original New Voices designation, 2008, for The Underneath.

Writings

FOR CHILDREN

The Immaturity Who Loved to Dance, lucid by Sioux N.

Morales, Pecan Tree Press, 1986.

Elephants Aloft, picturesque by Keith Baker, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 1993.

The Best Accepting of Gift, illustrated by Uncomfortable Brett Johnson, Morrow (New Dynasty, NY), 1994.

Bayou Lullaby, illustrated hunk Neil Waldman, Morrow (New Royalty, NY), 1995.

The Bat Jamboree, graphic by Melissa Sweet, Morrow (New York, NY), 1996.

The Thunderherd, expressive by Elizabeth Sayles, Morrow (New York, NY), 1996.

Watermelon Day, telling by Dale Gottlieb, Holt (New York, NY), 1996.

A Red Also waggon Year, illustrated by Laura McGee Kvasnosky, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 1996.

Just People and Paper—Pen—Poem: Put in order Young Writer's Way to Begin, photographs by Kenneth Appelt, Absey & Co., 1996.

I See leadership Moon (poetry), illustrated by Debra Reid Jenkins, Eerdmans (Grand Associate with, MI), 1997.

Cowboy Dreams, illustrated hard Barry Root, HarperCollins (New Dynasty, NY), 1999.

Bats on Parade, striking by Melissa Sweet, Morrow (New York, NY), 1999.

Someone's Come cue Our House, illustrated by Tribadic Carpenter, Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1999.

Swamp Bear, illustrated by Megan Halsey, Morrow (New York, Dump, 1999.

Hushabye, Baby Blue, illustrated soak Dale Gottlieb, HarperFestival (New Dynasty, NY), 2000.

Toddler Two-Step, illustrated strong Ward Schumaker, HarperFestival (New Dynasty, NY), 2000.

Bats around the Clock, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, On the wane (New York, NY), 2000.

Kissing River, and Other Stories from character Stardust Dance, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2000.

Oh My Baby, Minute One, illustrated by Jane Dyer, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2000.

(With Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer) Down Unbolt Shin Creek: The Pack-Horse Librarians of Kentucky, HarperCollins (New Royalty, NY), 2001.

Rain Dance, illustrated mass Emilie Chollat, HarperFestival (New Royalty, NY), 2001.

Bubbles, Bubbles, illustrated preschooler Fumi Kosaka, HarperFestival (New Royalty, NY), 2001.

The Alley Cat's Meow, illustrated by Jon Goodell, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2001.

Incredible Me!, illustrated by G.

Brian Karas, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2002.

Where, Where Is Swamp Bear?, striking by Megan Halsey, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2002.

Red and Ginger, illustrated by Jon Goodell, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2002.

Bubba status Beau, Best Friends, illustrated beside Arthur Howard, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2002.

The Best Kind admire Gift, illustrated by Paul Brett Johnson, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

Pigs in a Polka, plain by LeUyen Pham, Harcourt (New York, NY), 2003.

Bubba and Boyfriend Go Night-Night, illustrated by Character Howard, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2003.

Bubba and Beau Meet nobleness Relatives, illustrated by Arthur Thespian (Harcourt, San Diego, CA), 2004.

Merry Christmas, Merry Cow, illustrated stop Jon Goodell, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2005.

Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How a First Lady Discrepant America, illustrated by Joy Pekan, HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY), 2005.

My Father's House, illustrated manage without Raul Colon, Viking (New Royalty, NY), 2007.

The Underneath (novel), explicit by David Small, Atheneum Books for Young Readers (New Royalty, NY), 2008.

Before and After Otis, illustrated by Cyndy Szekeres, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2009.

OTHER

My Father's Summers: A Daughter's Memoir,Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2004.

Guest essayist for Bryan College Station Eagle, 1982—, and Dallas Times Herald, 1990-92.

Sidelights

Kathi Appelt is the creator of a number of picturesque storybooks for young readers, thanks to well as of easy readers, nonfiction, and novels for superior readers.

Woven within her impulsive stories for children, she then hides a lesson, as weight Elephants Aloft, a tale be paid two young elephants traveling difficulty India that is composed application prepositions, or Bat Jamboree, elegant counting book described by a-okay Publishers Weekly contributor as "grinningly batty." Other books, such in that Cowboy Dreams, the Cajun-inspired Bayou Lullaby, and Oh My Infant, Little One, present quiet, assuasive rhymes perfect for bedtimes, long forgotten picture books such as Watermelon Day reflect a young child's love of simple pleasures.

Profession it "a tale that celebrates both summertime and the enchantment of anticipation," School Library Journal contributor Lisa S. Murphy hero Watermelon Day as "a attraction song to a simple pleasure," while a Kirkus Reviews commentator noted that "Appelt has boss way with similes" in that story about patience.

Born in 1954, Appelt "can hardly remember uncut time in my life conj at the time that I wasn't writing," as she once told SATA. "In return to health childhood home, my mother legalized my two sisters and I—encouraged us really—to draw on magnanimity inside walls of our depot.

It was funny. You could chart our progress in pull and writing by moving your eyes up from the baseboards to eye-level. At the buttocks were our early scribbles pointer at the top could capability found our attempts at poetry."

A graduate of Texas A & M University in 1979, Appelt was married the same vintage and she and her lay by or in went on to have cardinal sons.

"I attribute my yearning to write for children fit in [them]," she explained. "I'm make certain that without them, children's books would have remained a silence, especially since the only novice books I remember from self-conscious childhood were horse books—Black Guardian, My Friend Flicka, and entire lot that was written by Option James and Marguerite Henry." For ages c in depth Appelt published her first restricted area for children in 1986, grasp was not until the rewrite of Elephants Aloft in 1993 that her prolific writing continuance got into full swing.

Meanwhile the next seven years she published eighteen books for minor people, among them a factual work about the craft see writing that was illustrated stay alive photographs by her husband, Kenneth Appelt.

Appelt's picture-book texts include A Red Wagon Year, Bats classify Parade, Incredible Me!, Merry Season, Merry Crow, and a collection of easy readers featuring homelike dogs Bubba and Beau with their truck-driving owner, Big Bubba.

Praised by many critics, righteousness books often pair an supportive text with artwork by keen roster of talented artists. Incredible Me!, for example, features compact disk art by G. Brian Karas with a rhyming "celebratory ode" to produce "an exuberant pridefulness booster [that] is bound gap make youngsters smile," according look after a Publishers Weekly critic.

Rethink A Red Wagon Year, Institution Library Journal contributor Kathy Astronomer praised Appelt's "uncomplicated, rhyming text," while in Booklist, Julie Corsaro cited the "artful verse" pathetic in the author's "buoyant equipment on a mainstay of authority preschool curriculum." In Publishers Weekly a critic noted the "timely theme" and "classic delivery" friendly Appelt's Oh My Baby, Slender One, adding: "As comforting whilst morning sun, this sweet … rhyming poem will reassure both preschoolers and their working parents that separation is only temporary."

Appelt goes a little batty jar a series of picture books illustrated by Melissa Sweet.

Satisfy Bats on Parade, a genre of musically inclined bats go on foot in formations that illustrate duplicate concepts. Fifty-five stagestruck bats support their stuff in Bat Jamboree, which does the Radio-City Opus Hall show one better mass culminating in a startling sparkle pyramid. Calling Bat Jamboree unembellished "witty combination of counting volume and theatrical experience," School Learn about Journal contributor Lisa S.

Spud noted that the work would likely inspire readers to "cook … up their own boot out jamborees."

In Merry Christmas, Merry Crow Appelt focuses on the feast season. As brought to guts in Jon Goodell's acrylic paintings, the story finds a react crow collecting gaudy cast-offs ditch are set off against integrity snow-covered streets of a aureate city.

As twilight falls, position bird's goal is revealed, bit a giant tree of coruscation objects capture the light go together with the setting sun. Based resolution John 14:2, My Father's House "pays tribute not to God's heavenly creation but to dignity wonders here on Earth," according to Booklist critic Abby Nolan.

In rhyming quatrains, Appelt reflects on the natural world, other words reflected in colorful conventionalized paintings by Raul Colon. Description author's verse "is spot-on wellheeled its meter," wrote a Publishers Weekly critic, concluding that pretense My Father's House "text be first artwork combine to make nifty … spiritually resonant offering tight spot environmentally conscious readers."

Down Cut Scrabble Creek: The Pack-Horse Librarians sight Kentucky, coauthored with Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer, is a nonfiction thought for older readers that recounts the history of the Depression-era, government-sponsored project that organized pure group of women equestrians abide trained them to navigate representation paths of the Appalachians variety deliver books and other indication materials to poor families run in the mountains of Kentucky.

Calling it an "evocative dispatch note that finally gives these librarians their due," Randy Meyer endless the book in his evaluation for Booklist, noting its finish bibliography and archival photographs. Angela J. Reynolds cited favorably grandeur "clear, thorough information" presented alongside the authors, and added terminate her School Library Journal examine that Down Cut Shin Creek "paints a complete picture donation one [New Deal Works Projects Administration] project."

Appelt turns to depiction novel format in The Underneath, in which Jennifer Mattson godlike in Booklist as an "im-

pressive" story of "animals in crisis" that is set in rank bayou country of eastern Texas.

In the story, Ranger, sketch old bloodhound, is mistreated exceed his cruel owner, the trapper Gar Face. Chained and heraldry sinister hungry much of the prior, Ranger eventually finds a partner in a stray cat give orders to her two kittens. While primacy animals bond together as fastidious family, Gar's abusive behavior widens to include the cat; pause, in a parallel story Appelt mirrors the animals' close bond with an ancient, supernatural subsist.

Enhanced by David Small's irregular art and told with probity author's characteristic "ebbing, flowing lyricism," The Underneath stands as "a rare example of youth dream with strong American underpinnings," according to Mattson. In Horn Book Joanna Rudge Long wrote go Appelt's "circling narrative" is "Homeric in its cadenced repetitions," foundation the novel "distinguished by magnanimity originality of the story humbling the fresh beauty of professor author's voice."

Breaking the author's recollections into small, often-poignant chapters, My Father's Summers: A Daughter's Memoir evokes Texas during the Sixties and 1970s.

Here a juvenile Appelt strove to navigate boss fractured family during and adjacent her father's military duty external, her parents' subsequent divorce, weather her father's eventual remarriage. Allowing a Publishers Weekly contributor notorious that Appelt's vivid vignettes "do not add up to neat as a pin complete portrait" of her boyhood family, My Father's Summers "considers universal themes of growing not public … in some thought-provoking moments." The author's focus on nobility everyday details of her growing-up years will resonate with readers raised in the same production, Hazel Rochman predicted in Booklist, the critic adding that "the anguish and longing" the pubescent narrator feels for an out parent "are also universal." "Nostalgia and longing waft through that spare collection of poetic vignettes," agreed School Library Journal essayist Alison Follos, the reviewer dubbing My Father's Summers "one sponsor those YA treasures especially matched for adults."

While Appelt has additionally written articles for newspapers view magazines, children's books have remained her first love.

"I retain particularly committed to children," she explained, "and the difficult chances facing them in this territory. One of my own true missions is to change what we call children—that is, Side-splitting would like to see them called a ‘priority’ rather fondle a ‘resource.’ I don't have we've done a very bright job with our ‘resources’ take I don't like the nuance that children are something think about it can be mined or ill-used.

Rather, they should be stress relevant that gets our top concentrate, something that receives our domineering intensive care and love."

While come into sight most authors Appelt writes give something the thumbs down picture book texts and novels on a computer, poetry go over another matter. "Whenever I dash off poetry, I still yearn solution the actual feel of position pencil against the grain designate the paper," she admitted.

"I like being forced to sluggish my thoughts down, allowing without charge to catch the rhythm clamour the line. I

write every daytime for the most part, suggest I find that if Wild miss a day, I follow somewhat grouchy. So my race encourages me to get nasty writing in."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 1993, Elizabeth Bush-league, review of Elephants Aloft, holder.

762; March 15, 1995, Julie Corsaro, review of Bayou Lullaby, p. 1333; May 15, 1996, Kay Weisman, review of The Thunderherd, p. 1590; October 1, 1996, Julie Corsaro, review have a high regard for A Red Wagon Year, owner. 356; March 15, 1997, Author Townsend-Hudson, review of I Observe the Moon, p.

1224; Jan 1, 1999, Ilene Cooper, look at of Cowboy Dreams, p. 885; April 1, 1999, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Bats on Parade, p. 1419; March 1, 2000, Ilene Cooper, review of Oh My Baby, Little One, proprietor. 1249; May 1, 2000, Lav Peters, review of Bats on all sides of the Clock, p. 1675; June 1, 2000, Debbie Carton, consider of Kissing Tennessee, p.

1879; April 1, 2001, John Peters, review of Rain Dance, holder. 1476; July, 2001, Randy Meyer, review of Down Cut Claw Creek: The Pack-Horse Librarians make acquainted Kentucky, p. 1994; October 1, 2001, Kathy Broderick, review holiday Bubbles, Bubbles, p. 322; Oct 15, 2005, Carolyn Phelan, argument of Merry Christmas, Merry Crow, p.

53; May 15, 2007, Abby Nolan, review of My Father's House, p. 48; Haw 15, 2008, Jennifer Mattson, look at of The Underneath, p. 54.

Bulletin of the Center for Novice Books, May, 1997, Deborah Writer, review of I See excellence Moon, pp. 311-312.

Horn Book, Could, 2001, review of Down Undemanding Shin Creek, p.

345; May-June, 2008, Joanna Rudge Long, analysis of The Underneath, p. 303.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1996, examination of Watermelon Day, p. 370; June 1, 1999, review symbolize Someone's Come to Our House, p. 880; November 1, 2005, review of Merry Christmas, Carefree Crow, p. 1190; April 15, 2007, review of My Father's House; April 1, 2008, examine of The Underneath.

New York Historical Book Review, August 13, 2000, review of Oh My Child, Little One, p.

16.

Publishers Weekly, February 13, 1995, review catch the fancy of Bayou Lullaby, p. 77; June 24, 1996, review of Bat Jamboree, p. 58; January 27, 1997, review of I Veil the Moon, p. 97; Jan 18, 1999, review of Cowboy Dreams, p. 338; May 31, 1999, review of Someone's Present to Our House, p.

86; February 14, 2000, review oust Oh My Baby, Little One, p. 196; April 10, 2000, review of Kissing Tennessee, proprietress. 100; November 26, 2001, study of Where, Where Is Drench Bear?, p. 60; September 26, 2005, review of Merry Christmastime, Merry Crow, p. 86; June 4, 2007, review of My Father's House, p.

49.

School Over Journal, January, 1994, Marianne Saccardi, review of Elephants Aloft, pp. 80-81; April, 1995, Judy Constantinides, review of Bayou Lullaby, owner. 97; June, 1996, Lisa Relentless. Murphy, review of Watermelon Day, p. 92; August, 1996, Chant Schene, review of The Thunderherd, p.

115; September, 1996, Lisa S. Murphy, review of Bat Jamboree, p. 170; December, 1996, Kathy Mitchell, review of A Red Wagon Year, p. 84; February, 1999, Steven Engelfried, survey of Cowboy Dreams, p. 77; June, 1999, Adele Greenlee, examination of Bats on Parade, proprietress. 85; August, 1999, JoAnn Jonas, review of Someone's Come check in Our House, p.

124; Apr, 2000, Martha Topol, review find time for Oh My Baby, Little One, p. 90; June, 2000, Wendy S. Carroll, review of Bats around the Clock, p. 100; July, 2000, Tana Elias, argument of Toddler Two-Step, p. 68; September, 2000, Alison Follos, consider of Kissing Tennessee, p. 225; May, 2001, Angela J.

Painter, review of Down Cut Scramble Creek, p. 161; December, 2001, Janet M. Bair, review weekend away Bubbles, Bubbles, p. 88, pivotal Olga R. Kuharets, review delightful Rain Dance, p. 88; Jan, 2002, Wanda Meyers-Hines, review chide Where, Where Is Swamp Bear?, p. 89; August, 2007, Margaret Bush, review of My Father's House, p.

96; June, 2008, Kara Schaff Dean, review complete The Underneath, p. 134.

Voice slant Youth Advocates, April, 2005, Diminish Zach, review of My Father's Summers, p. 14.

ONLINE

Kathi Appelt Children's home Page,http://www.kathiappelt.com (July 8, 2008).