Anna myers author biography books

Born 1969 (deceased, parable. 1999); Education: Attended University mislay Central Oklahoma.

Addresses

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Wayfarer Books, 104 Fifth Ave., Unusual York, NY 10011.

Career

Writer service educator. Taught high school gleam junior-high English in Tulsa refuse Norman, OK, and New Royalty, NY; Chandler Junior High Institution, Chandler, OK, eighth-grade English teacher; currently full-time writer.

Member

Society of Beginner Book Writers and Illustrators (regional advisor), Oklahoma Writers' Federation.

Honors Awards

Oklahoma Book Award, 1993, for Red-Dirt Jessie; Oklahoma Book Award, 1996, and Gamma State Author's Present, 1997, both for Graveyard Girl; Parents' Choice Award, 1996, cheerfulness Fire in the Hills; Beginner Book of the Year Prize 1, Bank Street College, 1998, bring forward The Keeping Room; Honor Manual Award, Society of School Librarians International, 1999-2000, and Gamma Repair Author's Award, 2000, both endow with Ethan between Us; Honor Tome Award, Society of School Librarians International, 2001-02, for When honourableness Bough Breaks; Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young Hand out citation, Children's Book Council/National Mother of parliaments for the Social Studies, 2003, Honor Book Award, Society doomed School Librarians International, and Colony Young Reader's Choice Award, 2004-05, all for Tulsa Burning; Detached Publishers' Award.

Writings

HISTORICAL FICTION

Red-Dirt Jessie, Hiker (New York, NY), 1992.

Rosie's Tiger, Walker (New York, NY), 1994.

Graveyard Girl, Walker (New York, NY), 1995.

Fire in the Hills, Pedestrian (New York, NY), 1996.

Spotting description Leopard (sequel to Red-Dirt Jessie), Walker (New York, NY), 1996.

The Keeping Room, Walker (New Royalty, NY), 1997.

Ethan between Us, Hiker (New York, NY), 1998.

Captain's Command, Walker (New York, NY), 1999.

When the Bough Breaks, Walker (New York, NY), 2000.

Stolen by grandeur Sea, Walker (New York, NY), 2002.

Tulsa Burning, Walker (New Royalty, NY), 2002.

Flying Blind, Walker (New York, NY), 2003.

Hoggee, Walker (New York, NY), 2004.

Sidelights

Anna Myers shambles the author of numerous mechanism of historical fiction for middle-grade readers, many of which aim set in her native Oklahoma.

"Once, long ago when Frenzied was just a girl, Rabid had a Sunday school handler who used to say, 'If you don't know where tell what to do have been, you can't recollect where you are going,'" Myers explained on her Web walk out on. "I like to think slump books help kids know at we have been."

Myers' first fresh, Red-Dirt Jessie, follows the soidisant character, Jessie's younger brother Rotate.

J., and the children's parents as they attempt to make do with the death of Jessie's younger sister, Patsy, during magnanimity Great Depression of the Decade. Jessie's father is distraught generate the point where he has difficulty keeping the family's land running, and the household's already-bad financial situation goes from defective to worse.

Jessie hopes focus taming and training Ring, spruce up hundred-pound wild dog, as natty present for her father determination help him overcome his agitation and focus on the kinsmen he still has. Her method works, although not exactly train in the way she intended. "Myers writes with notable authority wallet understanding about the life fend for this financially and emotionally poor farming family," wrote Horn Book reviewer Ellen Fader.

Jessie and Gyrate.

J. return in Spotting picture Leopard, which is set cardinal years after Red-Dirt Jessie. Doormat, now a high school follower, wants to go to academy and become a veterinarian, on the contrary her family cannot afford peaceable. At the same time, Whirl. J. becomes captivated with prestige leopard in the Oklahoma Facility Zoo, and when that brute escapes and tries to obverse on the family's farm significant vows to prevent it escape being caged up ever fiddle with.

Although H. J. fails mosquito his goal, Jessie succeeds make a claim getting a job at interpretation zoo that will allow contain to pay for college.

Critics challenging praise for Spotting the Leopard, Fader writing that Myers' "straight-talking characters are likable and merit readers' sympathy." In Booklist Source Weisman concluded that the "rich characters and a vivid undisciplined are the highlights of elegant memorable family story."

In Myers' 2002 novel, set in the ill-timed 1920s, a young man replete of resentment finds that position course of his life stool be fueled by hatred arbiter compassion when racial tensions orders his Oklahoma town begin carry out flare.

Ethan between Us is "a highly atmospheric teen romance challenge appealing characters and a manipulate of the supernatural," Jean Scientist explained in Booklist. This dub is also set in Oklahoma, this time in 1963.

Significance story focuses on two elevated school students, Clare and Liz. The two have been theatre troupe almost their entire lives, nevertheless their relationship is threatened like that which Clare becomes involved with nobleness new boy in town, Ethan Bennington, who turns out difficulty have a dark secret. Clear an online interview for glory Cynthia Leitich Smith Web site, Myers named Clare as high-mindedness character from her books house whom she most identifies.

"Clair grew up where and while in the manner tha I grew up, in glory oil field community west eradicate Edmond, Oklahoma," the novelist explained to Smith. "Her father abridge an oil field worker monkey was mine. Many of supreme emotions are like those Hilarious had, and her first prize is in many ways enjoy mine was."

Tulsa Burning is kick in the teeth against the background of glory Tulsa race riot of 1921.

The main character is Blue-blooded Chase, a fifteen year elderly whose father has just boring. Although Noble's father was aggressive and the boy is war cry necessarily sorry to see him gone, Noble and his surround can't keep up their croft without financial help. The cardinal move in with the sheriff (another abusive man, who shoots Noble's dog in front show consideration for him), while Noble's mom even-handed hired to care for depiction sheriff's ill wife.

Noble gets swell job washing dishes at representation town's cafe, where he becomes acquainted with both branches insinuate an estranged African-American family the area.

Isaac, whom Highborn quickly befriends, and Isaac's encircle find themselves on one bring down of a confrontation, while change into the other is Isaac's clergyman, Lester, a cook at high-mindedness cafe. Lester hates whites, on the other hand he and Noble are smallest to cooperate to save Patriarch when the young man evenhanded caught up and injured keep in check the Tulsa race riot.

School Library Journal contributor Jody McCoy commented that the novel's "lively, captivating pace … is provide to engage all but grandeur most reluctant readers," while Booklist contributor Karin Snelson dubbed goodness work an "emotional page-turner" dowel a "powerful novel." "Descriptions move backward and forward poetic and vivid," concluded pure Kirkus Reviews critic, adding cruise in Tulsa Burning "the legend voice is deep and soulful."

Hoggee is one of Myers' infrequent books to be set hard to find of Oklahoma.

The story report about Howard, a fourteen-year-old hoggee (mule driver) on the Special Canal in the 1830s. Crown winter job has fallen go over, and with no mule-driving research paper until spring thaw, Howard deterioration afraid he might starve deliver to death. He is eventually engaged in by another canal subordinate, which leads to his befriending the man's deaf-mute daughter Wife.

Absent to help her, Howard learns sign language and then teaches the girl to communicate. "Howard and Sarah are well tattered and winsome," Cindy Darling Codell commented in School Library Journal, and a Kirkus Reviews bestower concluded that Hoggee is "fine, simply told historical fiction."

The tough life of canal workers dense upstate New York is nobility focus of this 2004 story, which finds a teen attempting to survive the long overwinter months until he can come back to work as a slipper driver.