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When I was a kid, I liked to read. A lot.

One of our neighbors said recently that his clearest memory of me as a child was watching me rake the lawn one-handed while I read a book with the other! In fact, the highlight of a particular summer vacation was not, for me, going on the water slide at an amusement park, but rather stopping at a bookstore with a great kid's section and discovering-gasp!-that my favorite author, Lloyd Alexander, had written four more books.

I was born in California across from a zoo and then we lived on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound, and then moved again to Audubon, Pennsylvania where I spent most of my childhood. My dad was a pediatrician, and my mom a pediatric nurse. We had a dog named Ruffy who had a bad habit of chasing skunks and a hamster named Sneaker who liked to curl up in my hair and fall asleep (he was a very mellow hamster).

But my childhood was marked by something else-boys. Specifically, brothers. I had a pack of them. Four to be exact, and I liked to do everything they did-softball, kickball, climbing trees, spitting contests, swimming in the creek, you name it. I guess it left a lasting impression. Even my husband admits that it takes me less time to get ready in the bathroom than him!

My childhood has always been my main source of inspiration for my writing. You can see glimpses of it in my book THE CREEK, and also in OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA. Another big influence during these years were comic books and cartoon strips. My brothers and I would fight over the big color funny section of the Sunday newspaper. I still love comic books and graphic novels and I think reading them has helped make me a better writer.

I attended Audubon elementary School where I had a wonderful librarian named Mrs. Ellenburg. After surviving middle school (barely), I attended Methacton High School. In high school I did lots of different things-I was in the marching band, I was on the debate team, and I played lacrosse. So I guess you could say I was hard to pigeonhole. I graduated and went to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and that's where I really started writing.

After I graduated from college, I moved to New York City where I became a broadcast producer of television commercials and music videos for clients like Nickelodeon and MTV and American Express and Hershey's and even Huggies (yes-baby wipes!) I enjoyed working in television but I had always wanted to be a writer. My father's stories of the family farm in Naselle, Washington intrigued me and so when a family member sent me a photocopy of a diary kept by my great aunt, Alice Amelia Holm, when she was a young girl, I got the spark. May Amelia and the Jackson family were born. I was incredibly fortunate to receive a Newbery Honor for my first novel, OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA, and that allowed me to eventually become a full-time writer. My books have been translated into several languages and The Seattle Children's Theatre staged OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA in 2002.

I'm trying to stay out of trouble these days. I still prefer reading to amusement parks, and on occasion, I rake the lawn while reading a book. Although I confess I don't seem to get many leaves up that way. I now split my time between writing and taking care of my children, Will and Millie. My husband, Jonathan Hamel, and I recently collaborated on a series called THE STINK FILES about a British international cat of mystery. We all live in Northern California with one slightly stinky cat named Princess Leia Organa.

When I was a kid, I liked to read. A lot. One of our neighbors said recently that his clearest memory of me as a child was watching me rake the lawn one-handed while I read a book with the other! In fact, the highlight of a particular summer vacation was not, for me, going on the water slide at an amusement park, but rather stopping at a bookstore with a great kid's section and discovering-gasp!-... More