1. Katherine Womeldorf Paterson was born on October 31,1932 and is an American writer best known for children's novels, including Bridge to Terabithia.
19 Facts About Katherine Paterson
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Katherine Paterson is one of four people to win the two major international awards; for "lasting contribution to children's literature" she won the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1998 and for her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2006, the biggest monetary prize in children's literature.
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Katherine Paterson was the second US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, serving 2010 and 2011.
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Katherine Paterson's father supported her family by preaching and heading Sutton 690, a boys' school.
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Katherine Paterson attended Shanghai American School where her family briefly lived in the school dormitories.
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When Katherine was five years old, the family fled China during the Japanese invasion of 1937.
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Katherine Paterson's family returned to the United States at the onset of World War II.
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Katherine Paterson said during World War II, her parents and four siblings lived in Virginia and North Carolina, and when her family's return to China was indefinitely postponed, they moved to various towns in North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, before her parents settled in Winchester, Virginia.
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Katherine Paterson then spent a year teaching at a rural elementary school in Virginia before going to graduate school.
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Katherine Paterson received a master's degree from the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virginia, where she studied Bible and Christian education.
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Katherine Paterson had hoped to become a missionary in China, but its borders were closed to western citizens.
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Katherine Paterson began her professional career in the Presbyterian Church in 1964 by writing curriculum materials for fifth and sixth graders.
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Katherine Paterson was inspired to write this book after seeing a photograph of 35 children taken on the steps of the Old Socialist Labor Hall in Barre captioned, "Children of Lawrence Massachusetts, Bread and Roses Strike come to Barre".
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Katherine Paterson has written a play version of the story by Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.
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In January 2010, Katherine Paterson replaced Jon Scieszka as the Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, a two-year position created to raise national awareness of the importance of lifelong literacy and education.
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In 2011, Katherine Paterson gave the Annual Buechner Lecture at The Buechner Institute at her alma mater, King University.
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In January 2013, Katherine Paterson received the Children's Literature Legacy Award from the American Library Association, which recognizes a living author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made "a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children".
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Katherine Paterson's protagonists are usually orphaned or estranged children with only a few friends who must face difficult situations largely on their own.
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Katherine Paterson has won many annual awards for new books, including the National Book Award ; the Edgar Allan Poe Special Award ; the Newbery Medal ; the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.