EBMA's Top 100 Authors

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Giff, Patricia Reilly
April 26, 1935 -
Author
www.randomhouse.com/features/patriciareillygiff

1990 Ludington Award Winner

Biography and photo provided by Random House.

"I always start each day by writing. That's like breathing to me," says Patricia Reilly Giff. In fact, this bestselling author admits: "I wanted to write from the first time I picked up a book and read. I thought it must be the most marvelous thing to make people dance across the pages."

Reading and writing have always been an important part of Patricia Reilly Giff's life. As a child, her favorite books included Little Women, The Secret Garden, the Black Stallion books, the Sue Barton books, and the Nancy Drew series. Giff loved reading so much that while growing up, her sister had to grab books out of her hands to get Giff to pay attention to her; later, Giff's three children often found themselves doing the same thing. As a reading teacher for 20 years, the educational consultant for Dell Yearling and Young Yearling books, an adviser and instructor to aspiring writers, and the author of more than 60 books for children, Patricia Reilly Giff has spent her entire life surrounded by books.

After earning a B.A. degree from Marymount College, Giff took the advice of the school's dean and decided to become a teacher. She admits, "I loved teaching. It was my world. I only left because I was overwhelmed with three careers - teaching, writing, and my family."

During the 20 years of her teaching career, she earned an M.A. from St. John's University, and a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. Then one morning, Giff told her husband Jim, "I'm going to write a book. I've always wanted to write and now I shall." Jim worked quickly to combine two adjacent closets in their apartment into one cramped workspace and, as Giff jokes, she "began [her] career in a closet."

Giff explains, "I want the children to bubble up with laughter, or to cry over my books. I want to picture them under a cherry tree or at the library with my book in their hands. But more, I want to see them reading in the classroom. I want to see children in solitude at their desks, reading, absorbing, lost in a book."

Giff tries to write books "that say ordinary people are special." She says, "All of my books are based in some way on my personal experiences, or the experiences of members of my family, or the stories kids would tell me in school." Therefore, when she runs out of ideas for her books, Giff says, "I take a walk and look around. Maybe I spend some time in a classroom and watch the kids for a while. Sometimes I lie on the living room floor and remember my days in second grade or third. If all that doesn't work, I ask Ali, or Jim, or Bill - Giff's children, whose names often appear in her books.

When she's not writing, Patricia Reilly Giff enjoys reading in the bathtub and going to the movies and eating popcorn. She and her husband reside in Weston, Connecticut. They have three children and five grandchildren. In 1990, Giff combined her two greatest loves - children's books and her family - and, with her husband and her children, opened The Dinosaur's Paw, a children's bookstore named after one of her Kids of the Polk Street School novels. This store is part of Giff's quest to bring children and books together. She and her family are trying to "share our love of children's books and writing and to help others explore the whole world of children's books."

Throughout the year, Giff visits schools and libraries around the country and speaks to her readers about her books, and about writing. When discussing her work, Giff claims, "I have no special talent, you know. I never took a writing course before I began to write." She believes that anyone who has problems, or worries, anyone who laughs and cries, anyone who feels can write. It's only talking on paper...talking about the things that matter to us."

Giff's Newbery Honor-winning novel, Lily's Crossing, is a vivid portrait of the home front during World War II. Fans of Giff's Kids of the Polk Street School series who are ready to tackle a more challenging book will love this funny, sad, but reassuring story.

Her book, All the Way Home, tells the touching story of Brick and Mariel, two 11-year-old friends who know firsthand about adversity, and together embark on a journey that brings them personal peace.

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