100 Most Popular Children's Authors

Students can learn more about their favorite authors and find plenty of reading materials they'll enjoy with this affordable biographical work and ready-reference. Featuring 100 beloved and celebrated children's book authors, McElmeel offers engaging biographical sketches, photos, and selected bibliographies and lists of related information sources. Included are such long-time luminaries as Beverly Cleary and Marguerite Henry as well as many new emerging writers. McElmeel's focus is on contemporary authors and those whose works are still in print. A more current and affordable alternative to multivolume publications, this book is a great collection development tool and resource for author studies. Students will enjoy using it for their reports and research papers.

Students can learn more about their favorite authors and find plenty of reading materials they'll enjoy with this affordable biographical work and ready-reference. Featuring 100 beloved and celebrated children's book authors, McElmeel offers engaging biographical sketches, photos, and selected bibliographies and lists of related information sources. Included are such long-time luminaries as Beverly Cleary and Marguerite Henry as well as many new emerging writers. McElmeel's focus is on contemporary authors and those whose works are still in print. A more current and affordable alternative to multivolume publications, this book is a great collection development tool and resource for author studies. Students will enjoy using it for their reports and research papers.

Library Journal

Gr 6-9-This handy resource provides fairly extensive biographical information about writers enjoyed by elementary and middle school children. Authors of contemporary and classic novels and nonfiction titles are included. For each entry, several pages of background are followed by a selective, sometimes annotated book list of the person's works and several titles for further reading. This inconsistent use of annotations is bothersome. Occasional Web sites are also given. Clearly, depth of coverage can't be as complete as the multivolume Something about the Author (Gale) or the Biography Today: Author Series (Omnigraphics), but McElmeel more than adequately covers each writer's life and work. "Most popular" is always open to interpretation, and obviously not everyone will agree with this designation. Many of the writers are also found in Bernard Drew's The 100 Most Popular Young Adult Authors (Libraries Unlimited, 1997). There are black-and-white photos of fewer than half the entries. Helpful genre and general indexes conclude the volume. For libraries owning any of the biographical sets, this is not a first purchase. However, its accessible format will make it the preferred title to answer general questions. Useful for collections serving teachers and students.-Peg Glisson, Mendon Center Elementary School, Pittsford, NY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

SHARRON L. MCELMEEL, an adjunct instructor at Mount Mercy College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is a long-time educator and library media specialist who has built a national reputation in the area of children's literature and is an often requested conference speaker. She was named Iowa Reading Teacher of the Year in 1987 and was nominated as Iowa's Teacher of the Year in 1997.