American children's writer who won a Newbery Medal for her 1993 book, Missing May. Her other acclaimed children's books include A Fine White Dust, I Had Seen Castles, and the Cobblestreet Cousins and Annie & Snowball series. Her debut work, When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982), describes her childhood in the Appalachian region of West Virginia. She later received degrees from Morris Harvey College and Marshall University.
