Lynne Rae Perkins

Lynne Rae Perkins (born 1956) is a Newbery Medal winning American writer and illustrator of books for children.

Her novel "Criss Cross", winner of the 2006 Newbery Medal, is a book of vignettes, illustrations, photographs, and poems about a group of four small town teenagers.

"Writing in a wry, omniscient third-person narrative voice, Perkins deftly captures the tentativeness and incompleteness of adolescence," said Award Committee Chair Barbara Barstow. "In 38 brief chapters, this poetic, postmodern novel experiments with a variety of styles: haiku, song lyrics, question-and-answer dialogue and split-screen scenarios. With seeming yet deliberate randomness, Perkins writes an orderly, innovative, and risk-taking book in which nothing happens and everything happens."

Since 1922, the Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year.

Her picture book "Home Lovely" was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book. Her novel "All Alone in the Universe" was named an American Library Association Notable Book, a "Booklist" Editor's Choice, a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book, and a "Smithsonian Magazine" Notable Book for Children.

Perkins was born and raised in Cheswick, Pennsylvania, a suburb fourteen miles northeast of Pittsburgh in the Allegheny River Valley. She earned her B.A. at The Pennsylvania State University in 1978 and her M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1981. She currently lives with her husband and two children in Suttons Bay, Michigan.

Works

* "Home Lovely", (New York: Greenwillow Books, 1995)
* "Clouds for Dinner", (New York: Greenwillow Books, 1997)
* "All Alone in the Universe", (Scholastic Books, 2000)
* "Georgie Lee", illustrator, book by Sharon Phillips Denslow, (New York: Greenwillow Books, 2002)
* "The Broken Cat", (New York: Greenwillow Books, 2002)
* "Snow Music", (New York: Greenwillow Books, 2003)
* "Criss Cross", (New York: Greenwillow Books, 2005)
* "Pictures from our Vacation", (New York: Greenwillow Books, 2007)

External links

* [http://www.harperchildrens.com/authorintro/index.asp?authorid=18005 HarperCollins Webpage for Lynne Rae Perkins]