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Vivian Vande Velde
Vivivan Vande Velde is the author of over thirty books for children and teenagers. Since her first novel, A Hidden magic, Vande Velde has explored identity by developing characters that run counter to the norm, in an easy, humorous style that young readers find irresistible. Vande Velde finds inspiration in each new character she writes, and in the readers she meets on her travels. She has won numerous awards for her many books.
* Reviews *
Vivian VandeVelde writes young adult fiction, picture books and chapter books, and grew up wanting to be a writer. This biography explores Ms VandeVeldes life with a happy childhood, a multilingual family, and a love for fantasy books. In high school, Vivian continued to write for the Drama Club and her school newspaper. Several years later, she resumes writing fantasies for children in a continuing education class. Thus begins her first successful childrens novel, A Hidden Magic. Surprisingly, this story was rejected numerous times, but VandeVelde realized that perhaps this was due to the wrong publishers and persevered. In the late 1980s, Jane Yolen, a young adult editor of fantasy and science fiction becomes VandeVeldes editor as well as her supporter. This biography is a nice introduction to a young adult author in spite of overuse of footnotes and a possible need to be somewhat familiar with VandeVeldes titles. Middle school and high school readers, especially fans of her novels, can appreciate the brief length of around 100 pages. A list of selected works and a short chronology appear at the end., Children's Literature
RL
Grades
6-7 IL
Grades
6-12+ GRL
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