It's been raining steadily here in New England for more than a week. Winter is trying to move in and summer is stubbornly resisting the push towards the door! With no incentive to go outside, there's nothing like a good book to curl up with while staying inside warm and dry. Students know this too - once they are bitten by the reading bug they continually look for the next new read as they voraciously consume titles by favorite authors. Often authors are the key. Get a child hooked on one book by a writer and they'll go digging for more. This is one reason an author study can be so rewarding as an extension of enjoying a good read. Knowing more about the author makes a connection with the reader through the text which can be magical!

Authors provide a great model for aspiring young writers, too. As Donald Graves pointed out more than twenty years ago, writing is a craft and writing apprentices should learn their craft from expert wordsmiths. Helping students make the connection with their favorite authors is a great way to nurture good habits in writing and developing a unique author's voice. Reading and writing are not reciprocal tasks, but complementary processes!

Like everyone else, authors are carving out a niche online for themselves. From classic writers who lived hundreds of years ago to today's most popular authors, the Web offers biographies and bibliographies for many of them. Book publishing companies are always glad to feature their authors, but some of the best sites I've found are created by educators and avid fans of specific writers. It is my hope that among these famed names you will find resources you can use in your classroom for one or more author studies this year. Enjoy!

PS - Love my Innovative teaching Newsletter? Then you have to subscribe to my Digital Dozen Newsletter. You'll get a dozen great Web resources on a topic every week of the school year - forty issues in all! Check it out here!

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2005 Authors Online

Good General Resources

Author Appearances
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/authorappearances.htm

Author Page
http://www.ipl.org/youth/AskAuthor/Biographies.html

Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Web Site
http://www.carolhurst.com/

Children's Literature Web Guide
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html

Index to Children's and Young Adults' Authors & Illustrators
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/biochildhome.htm

Literature Network
http://www.online-literature.com/author_index.php

Meet Authors and Illustrators
http://www.childrenslit.com/f_mai.htm

Pandemonium!
http://www.panmacmillan.com.au/pandemonium/

Vandergrift's Author and Illustrator Pages
http://scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/AuthorSite/index.html

 

Primary Authors

Avi
http://www.avi-writer.com/

Caroline Arnold
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1264/

Molly Bang
http://www.mollybang.com/

Stan & Jan Berenstain
http://www.berenstainbears.com/

Jan Brett
http://www.janbrett.com/

Norman Bridwell
http://www.scholastic.com/clifford/

Marc Brown
http://www.marcbrownstudios.com/index.html

Eric Carle
http://www.eric-carle.com/

Beverly Cleary
http://www.beverlycleary.com/index.html

Tomie de Paola
http://www.tomiedepaola.com/

Mem Fox
http://www.memfox.net/

Paul Galdone
http://www.hallkidsbooks.com/G/6.shtml

Anna Grossnickle Hines
http://www.aghines.com/

Pat Hutchins
http://www.titch.net/

Joan Irvine
http://www.makersgallery.com/joanirvine/

Crockett Johnson
http://www.ksu.edu/english/nelp/purple/index.html

William Joyce
http://www.harperchildrens.com/williamjoyce/homepage.htm

Ezra Jack Keats
http://www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/keats/main.html

Lois Lenski
http://library.uncg.edu/depts/speccoll/lenski/

Leo Lionni
http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/schools/Beal/Curriculum/media/Lionni/leolionni.html

Suse MacDonald
http://www.susemacdonald.com/

Mercer Mayer
http://www.littlecritter.com/

Lucy Maud Montgomery
http://www.upei.ca/~lmmi/lmm-life.shtml

Robert Munsch
http://www.robertmunsch.com/

Laura Numeroff
http://www.lauranumeroff.com/

Dav Pilkey
http://www.pilkey.com/

Patricia Polacco
http://www.patriciapolacco.com/

Jack Prelutsky
http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetry/jack_home.htm

Maurice Sendak
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/sendak_m.html

Dr. Seuss
http://www.seussville.com/

Shel Silverstein
http://shelsilverstein.com/indexSite.html

William Steig
http://www.williamsteig.com/

Janet Stevens
http://www.janetstevens.com/

Chris Van Allsburg
http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/flash.html

Rosemary Wells
http://www.rosemarywells.com/

Laura Ingalls Wilder
http://webpages.marshall.edu/~irby1/laura/frames.html

Elizabeth Winthrop
http://www.elizabethwinthrop.com/index.html

Audrey Wood
http://www.audreywood.com/

Jane Yolen
http://www.janeyolen.com/

Charlotte Zolotow
http://www.charlottezolotow.com/

 

Young Adult Authors

David Adler
http://www.davidaadler.com/

Louisa May Alcott
http://www.alcottweb.com/

Natalie Babbitt
http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/askauthor/babbitt.html

L. Frank Baum
http://www.eskimo.com/~tiktok/index.html

John Bellairs
http://www.bellairsia.com/

Judy Blume
http://www.judyblume.com/menu-main.html

Betsy Byars
http://www.betsybyars.com/

Lewis Carroll
http://www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll.html

Susan Cooper
http://www.thelostland.com/biography.htm

Robert Cormier
http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-cormier-robert.asp

Stephen Crane
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/crane/

Karen Cushman
http://www.eduplace.com/author/cushman/

Roald Dahl
http://www.roalddahl.com/

Sylvia Engdahl
http://www.sylviaengdahl.com/

Sid Fleischman
http://204.255.213.26/authco/fleischman.htm

Jean Craighead George
http://www.jeancraigheadgeorge.com/

Virginia Hamilton
http://www.virginiahamilton.com/home.htm

S.E. Hinton
http://www.sehinton.com/

E.L. Konigsburg
http://www.elkonigsburg.com/

Madeleine L’Engle
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8838/

C.S. Lewis
http://cslewis.drzeus.net/

Lois Lowry
http://www.loislowry.com/

Patricia MacLachlan
http://www.harperchildrens.com/catalog/author_xml.asp?authorID=12425

Katherine Patterson
http://www.carolhurst.com/newsletters/31dnewsletters.html

Gary Paulsen
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/garypaulsen/

J.K. Rowling
http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/home.asp

Louis Sachar
http://www.louissachar.com/

Elizabeth George Speare
http://www.edupaperback.org/showauth.cfm?authid=85

Jerry Spinelli
http://www.jerryspinelli.com/newbery_001.htm

Zilpha Keatley Snyder
http://www.zksnyder.com/

Johanna Spyri
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Glade/8905/

R.L. Stine
http://place.scholastic.com/goosebumps/

Armstrong Sperry
http://www.ogram.org/sperry/

E.B. White
http://www.harperchildrens.com/hch/author/author/white/

T.H. White
http://www2.netdoor.com/~moulder/thwhite/

 

Secondary Authors

Dante Alighieri
http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/

Ray Bradbury
http://www.spaceagecity.com/bradbury/

Pearl S. Buck
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pearlbuc.htm

Joseph Conrad
http://members.tripod.com/~JTKNK/

Charles Dickens
http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/

T.S. Eliot
http://www.whatthethundersaid.org/

F. Scott Fitzgerald
http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/

Nathaniel Hawthorne
http://www.uwm.edu/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg143.htm

Ernest Hemingway
http://www.pbs.org/hemingwayadventure/

Aldous Huxley
http://somaweb.org/

Washington Irving
http://www.hudsonvalley.org/education/Background/abt_irving/abt_irving.html

James Joyce
http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/

Jack Kerouac
http://www.jackkerouac.com/index.php

Harper Lee
http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/

Jack London
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/

W. Somerset Maugham
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/india.html

Herman Melville
http://www.melville.org/

Walter Dean Myers
http://scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/myers.html

Flannery O’Connor
http://mediaspecialist.org/

Richard Peck
http://www.richardpeck.smartwriters.com/

Sylvia Plath
http://www.sylviaplathforum.com/

Edgar Allen Poe
http://www.comnet.ca/~forrest/

J.D. Salinger
http://www.salinger.org/

William Shakespeare
http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/

John Steinbeck
http://www.steinbeck.org/MainFrame.html

J.R.R. Tolkien
http://www.theonering.com/

Mark Twain
http://www.kyrene.k12.az.us/schools/brisas/sunda/great/2jon.htm

Jules Verne
http://JV.Gilead.org.il/

Cynthia Voight
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/voigt.html

Alice Walker
http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/alicew/

Elie Wiesel
http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/

Tennessee Williams
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/English/ms-writers/dir/williams_tennessee/