HI! Welcome to the page where you can find everything you need to know about a few very important authors of children's books who live in Vermont.
Katherine never wanted to be a writer when she was a child. When she was ten she wanted to be a movie star or a missionary.
In the sixth grade, she wrote plays for her friends to act out.
About her wanting to be a missionary, Katherine spent a year teaching in a rural school in northern part of Virginia. "...Almost all of my children were like Jesse Aarons. I'll never forget that wonderful class." Another quote from Katherine, "A teacher I met at a meeting in Virginia recently told me that when she read Bridge To Terabithia to her class, one of the girls told her that her mother had been in that Lovettsville sixth grade..." Katherine also said, "...I hope that they can tell by reading it how much they meant to me."
After Lovettsville, she spent two years in graduate school in Richmond,Virginia studying the Bible and Christian education. What next you ask? She went to Japan. (Yes, Japan! ) She had a dream of being a missionary in China and eating Chinese for every meal, or at least three times a day! But in 1957 Americans couldn't go to China. Katherine had a Japanese friend who suggested and urged her to go to Japan instead. "If you've read any of my early books, you must know that I came to love Japan and feel very much at home there." were Katherine's words. she went to school there and lived in Japan for four years. She said, "I had every intention of spending the rest of my life among the Japanese." But when she returned to America she met a Presbyterian minister and changed her life once again by marrying Mr. John Paterson in 1962.
"I suppose my life as a writer began in 1964." The Presbyterian church asked her to write material for children in the grades 5 and 6. "Since the church had given me a scholarship to study and work in Japan, I felt I owed them something for their money. So I began writing." and... "by the time the books were published, I had moved three more times, acquired three children and was hooked on writing,". She decided she didn't want to write nonfiction books anymore, but what she did want to write was what she herself loved to read, fiction. She didn't realize that wanting to write fiction and being able to write fiction were two different things, totally. Between diapering, feeding, reading aloud, walking to the park, and still another baby, she kept writing and writing and published almost nothing at all.
Out of all the books Katherine Paterson has written, she doesn't have a favorite book.
1. She bases all her books on her feelings and not on the people in her life.
2. She encourages people to write but not necessarily publish anything.
3. If somebody wanted to write, Katherine Paterson says the first thing to do is ... READ!!
4. Her favorite place today is right here, in Vermont, but if I asked her that question when she lived anywhere else, she would've said, "Right here".
Jim Arnosky was fishing one evening when he saw a group of thirteen ducks waddle to the shore. He spent the evening watching the ducks and fishing, and knew that night a book was on the way!
Jim is known for two reasons, his good observations and great artistic talent(s).Jim has written and illustrated MANY books.
Jim Arnosky and his family own a twenty-acre farm in good-ol' Vermont
SOME books by Jim Arnosky:
Bert Dodson is an illustrator who lives in Vermont.His studio is in the Bradford Academy Building which is on Route 5, Main St., in Bradford, Vermont. On March 5,1998, I went to his studio and personally talked to Bert. Also, I "talked" to his Golden retriever dog.
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1.His favorite thing to draw is the living world because he feels people should hold their own place in the world.
2.He uses models for his art/paintings.
3. The way he makes money is he has an agent and his agent sells his paintings/art to people who want to buy them.
4. Bert always knew he loved to draw and make art.
5. Bert, personally works his own hours and/or when it's convenient for him at the time, but, usually works as many hours as the regular American.
6. Bert was born in Texas, grew up in Arizona, and moved to Vermont about 25 years ago.
7. Bert said he would encourage people to write or draw/paint.
8. He said the thing people should do to become writers or artists is to observe the way people laugh, talk, dress and how they control their emotions.
Books illustrated by Bert Dodson:
Book Book Illustrator
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Folk Tales of America |
Corinne J. Naden |
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Grandpa Was a Cowboy |
Silky Sullivan |
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Ancient Greece |
Susan Purdy and Cass Sundak |