Talk:Sharon Creech/Draft

Sharon Creech (born July 29, 1945) is an American novelist of children's fiction.

Biography
Sharon Creech was born in South Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, where she grew up with her parents (Ann and Arvel), one sister (Sandy), and three brothers (Dennis, Doug and Tom). She often used to visit her cousins in Quincy, Kentucky, which has found its way into many of her books - transformed into Bybanks, Kentucky. Bybanks appears in Walk Two Moons, “Chasing Redbird” and “Bloomability”. Bybanks also makes a brief appearance (by reference, but not by name) in “The Wanderer”.

At college she became intrigued by story-telling after taking literature and writing courses, and later became a teacher of High School English and Writing in England and Switzerland.

She is married to Lyle Rigg, a headmaster in New Jersey, and has two grown children, Rob and Karin.

Style
Although initially writing adult novels, since penning Absolutely Normal Chaos, published in 1990, she has focused on writing mainly about young people. She has written both novels and picture books. She often embeds serious topics into her stories, including such themes as independence, trust, childhood, adulthood, and death, often using humour to soften them.

Creech also varies in her writing style. Books such as Love That Dog and Heartbeat were written in verse, whereas other books like Ruby Holler and Walk Two Moons are in a narrative style.

Awards
Creech has won several awards, including the Newbery Medal and Carnegie Medal.

In 1995 Walk Two Moons won the Newbery Medal, the United Kingdom Reading Association Award, and the United Kingdom’s Children's Book Award. In 1997, it also won the Literaturhaus Award, Austria, and the Young Adult Sequoyah Award, Oklahoma, USA.

Bloomability won the IRA/CBC Children's Choices award in 1999.

The Wanderer won the Parents' Choice Award, USA, in 2000, and the Newbery Honor Award in 2001.

Absolutely Normal Chaos won the YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, USA in 2001.

Ruby Holler received the 2002 Carnegie Medal in Literature.

Books

 * 1990 Absolutely Normal Chaos
 * 1994 Walk Two Moons
 * 1996 Pleasing the Ghost
 * 1997 Chasing Redbird
 * 1999 Bloomability
 * 2001  The Wanderer
 * 2000 Fishing in the Air
 * 2001 Love That Dog
 * 2001 A Fine, Fine School
 * 2002 Ruby Holler
 * 2003 Granny Torrelli Makes Soup
 * 2004  Heartbeat
 * 2005  Replay
 * 2006 Who's That Baby
 * 2007 The Castle Corona (Illustrated by David Diaz)
 * 2008 Hate That Cat
 * 2009 The Unfinished Angel