Kathi Appelt facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Kathi Appelt
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Appelt at the 2017 Texas Book Festival
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| Born | July 6, 1954 Fayetteville, North Carolina |
| Occupation | Writer, writing teacher |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1990s–present |
| Genre | Children's literature, picture books, non-fiction |
Kathi Appelt (born July 6, 1954) is an American author of more than forty books for children and young adults. She won the annual PEN USA award for Children's Literature recognizing The Underneath (2008).
Contents
Early life and education
Kathi Appelt was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on July 6, 1954. Her father, Bill Cowgill, was a member of the 82nd Airborne stationed there. Her father and her mother Patricia were still teenagers when she was born.
Appelt's family moved moved to El Paso, TX and then to Houston, Texas, where she grew up. Her two younger sisters, Patty and B.J., were born in Houston. The girls used to spend time in her father's garage, drawing with crayons on a blank wall. It was her frist experience of self-expression, Appelt admits.
She graduated from Texas A&M University in 1972.
Personal life
She married Kenneth L. Appelt (a teacher), on January 6, 1979. The have two sons together, Jacob and Cooper. They have grown to become jazz musicians.
The couple lives in College Station, Texas.
Career
Appelt is the author of more than 30 books. She writes novels, picture books, poetry, and nonfiction for children and young adults. Her books have been translated into several languages: Spanish, Chinese, French, and Swedish.
Her first novel was The Underneath, illustrated by David Small and published by Simon & Schuster in 2008. It features a cat and dog who live mainly beneath an old house in the Louisiana–Texas bayou. For that work she received the annual Children's Literature award from PEN Center USA and she was also a runner-up for the National Book Award (National Book Award for Young People's Literature finalist) and the American Library Association Newbery Medal (Newbery Honor Book).
Her papers are held in the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi (unprocessed manuscripts collection, 1985–2005).
Appelt taught an upper-level course on writing for children at Texas A&M. As of 2020, she was a teacher in the Master of Fine Arts writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Interesting facts about Kathi Appelt
- Appelt was born on the front seat of her father's car as he was driving her mother to the hospital.
- She keeps a journal.
- She points out that waiting is not her strong side.
Kathi Appelt quotes
- “Most of my books and poems come directly from my own life because that’s what I know best and feel most strongly about.”
- “The liberal arts has a human core. We are storytellers because we ourselves are stories.”
- “Writing is really a way of seeing.”
Selected works
- The Underneath, illustrated by David Small (Simon & Schuster, 2008)
- Brand-New Baby Blues, illustrated by Kelly Murphy (HarperCollins, 2009)
- Keeper, illus. August Hall (Atheneum Books, 2010)
- Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky, co-authored by Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer (HarperCollins, 2001; Purple House Press 2019)
- Max Attacks, illus. Penelope Dullaghan (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2019)
See also
In Spanish: Kathi Appelt para niños
