American author Katherine Paterson is a highly acclaimed author of children’s and young adult literature. Born in China in 1932 to Presbyterian ministers, she and her family fled to China during the Japanese invasion in 1937 and returned to the US during World War II (WWII). She earned English and Education degrees in college and then intended to be a missionary in China, like her parents. She became a missionary in Japan instead. She has four children and currently lives in Vermont (“2007 – Katherine Paterson - Neustadt Prizes.” The Neustadt Prizes, 2007).

Her first children’s novel, The Sign of the Chrysanthemum, was published in 1973, and she has since published over 40 books. She is one of only six authors to earn the Newbery Medal twice: once for Bridge to Terabithia in 1977, and again for Jacob Have I Loved in 1981. She has also received the National Book Award twice, for The Master Puppeteer in 1977 and The Great Gilly Hopkins in 1979. Her other awards include the Scott O’Dell Award for Children’s Literature (1982), the Hans Christian Andersen Medal (1998), the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2006), the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature (2007), and the E.