'Help the world make a little more sense'

 

 

“If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's why I was put on the planet.” – Laurie Halse Anderson

Born in Potsdam, NY on Oct. 23, 1961 Anderson is a recipient of both the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award and the international Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, both for career contributions to YA and Children’s literature. 

 

The author of a dozen YA novels and two dozen Children’s books, Anderson began her writing career as a freelancer and then reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer.  She started writing creatively in the mid-1990s and her third book, the YA novel Speak, put her on the writing map.  Winner of the Golden Kite Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the shattering novel portrays a 13-year-old sexual assault victim who loses her ability to speak after being attacked.  Also made into a movie, Speak has been translated into 16 languages.

 

Among her other top award winners is Fever 1793, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Junior Library Guild selection, and Chains, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. 

 

 “The most painstaking aspect of being a teen,  (is) figuring out what the world really looks like,” she said.  “If you find someone in a book, you know you're not alone and that's what's so comforting about books.”