Sharon Creech

Author profile

born

July 29, 1945 in South Euclid, Ohio, The United States

gender

female

website

http://www.sharoncreech.com

genre

Children's Books

About this author

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I was born in South Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and grew up there with my noisy and rowdy family: my parents (Ann and Arvel), my sister (Sandy), and my three brothers (Dennis, Doug and Tom).
For a fictional view of what it was like growing up in my family, see Absolutely Normal Chaos. (In that book, the brothers even have the same names as my own brothers.) Our house was not only full of us Creeches, but also full of friends and visiting relatives.
In the summer, we usually took a trip, all of us piled in a car and heading out to Wisconsin or Michigan or, once, to Idaho. We must have been a very noisy bunch, and I'm not sure how our parents put up with being cooped up with us in the car for those trips. The five-day trip out to Idah...more I was born in South Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and grew up there with my noisy and rowdy family: my parents (Ann and Arvel), my sister (Sandy), and my three brothers (Dennis, Doug and Tom).
For a fictional view of what it was like growing up in my family, see Absolutely Normal Chaos. (In that book, the brothers even have the same names as my own brothers.) Our house was not only full of us Creeches, but also full of friends and visiting relatives.
In the summer, we usually took a trip, all of us piled in a car and heading out to Wisconsin or Michigan or, once, to Idaho. We must have been a very noisy bunch, and I'm not sure how our parents put up with being cooped up with us in the car for those trips. The five-day trip out to Idaho when I was twelve had a powerful effect on me: what a huge and amazing country! I had no idea then that thirty-some years later, I would recreate that trip in a book called Walk Two Moons.
One other place we often visited was Quincy, Kentucky, where my cousins lived (and still live) on a beautiful farm, with hills and trees and swimming hole and barn and hayloft. We were outside running in those hills all day long, and at night we'd gather on the porch where more stories would be told. I loved Quincy so much that it has found its way into many of my books--transformed into Bybanks, Kentucky. Bybanks appears in Walk Two Moons and Chasing Redbird and Bloomability. Bybanks also makes a brief appearance (by reference, but not by name) in The Wanderer.
When I was young, I wanted to be many things when I grew up: a painter, an ice skater, a singer, a teacher, and a reporter. It soon became apparent that I had little drawing talent, very limited tolerance for falling on ice, and absolutely no ability to stay on key while singing. I also soon learned that I would make a terrible reporter because when I didn't like the facts, I changed them. It was in college, when I took literature and writing courses, that I became intrigued by story-telling. Later, I was a teacher (high school English and writing) in England and in Switzerland. While teaching great literature, I learned so much about writing: about what makes a story interesting and about techniques of plot and characterization and point of view. I started out writing novels for adults: The Recital and Nickel Malley were both written and published while I was living in England (these books were published in England only and are now out of print.) But the next book was Absolutely Normal Chaos, and ever since that book I have written mainly about young people. Walk Two Moons was the first of my books to be published in America. When it received the Newbery Medal, no one was more surprised than I was. I'm still a little bit in shock.
After Walk Two Moons came Chasing Redbird, Pleasing the Ghost, Bloomability, The Wanderer, and Fishing in the Air. I hope to be writing stories for a long, long time.
I am married to Lyle Rigg, who is the headmaster of The Pennington School in Pennington, New Jersey, and have two grown children, Rob and Karin. Being with my family is what I enjoy most. The next-best thing is writing stories.

© Sharon Creech(less)

211 posts
Sharon Creech's Blog

Sharon Creech isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but she does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from her feed.

Squirrels in the Crabapple

"She has squirrels in the attic"someone might sayof mewhen I'm deep in a draftand dizzy in the 'real' world
but outside my windowthere aresquirrels in the crabapplehappily munchingonblossoms
xx

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Published on May 26, 2012 04:57 • 2 views

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combine editions
Books by Sharon Creech

Average rating: 3.90 · 83,848 ratings · 8,362 reviews · 31 distinct works

	Walk Two Moons 3.93 avg rating — 39,960 ratings — published 1994 — 39 editions	My rating:
	Love That Dog 3.97 avg rating — 10,793 ratings — published 2001 — 24 editions	My rating:
	Ruby Holler 3.94 avg rating — 5,183 ratings — published 2002 — 31 editions	My rating:
	Heartbeat 3.87 avg rating — 4,010 ratings — published 2004 — 24 editions	My rating:
	Chasing Redbird 4.01 avg rating — 4,260 ratings — published 1997 — 28 editions	My rating:
	Bloomability 3.97 avg rating — 3,870 ratings — published 1998 — 24 editions	My rating:
	The Wanderer by Sharon Creech, David Diaz (Illustrations) 3.78 avg rating — 3,909 ratings — published 2000 — 33 editions	My rating:
	Absolutely Normal Chaos 3.85 avg rating — 3,222 ratings — published 1990 — 15 editions	My rating:
	Hate That Cat 3.91 avg rating — 2,448 ratings — published 2008 — 10 editions	My rating:
	Granny Torrelli Makes Soup 3.76 avg rating — 2,180 ratings — published 2003 — 19 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Sharon Creech

“Then I thought, boy, isn't that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.”
― Sharon Creech, Absolutely Normal Chaos

tags: sad , waiting

198 people liked it

“Sometimes you know in your heart you love someone, but you have to go away before your head can figure it out.”
― Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons

tags: love

142 people liked it

“Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.”
― Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons

tags: chapter-9 , pg-51

120 people liked it

See all Sharon Creech's quotes »

Polls

What is your favorite Sharon Creech novel?

Walk Two Moons

67 votes, 64.4%

other

21 votes, 20.2%

Love That Dog

11 votes, 10.6%

Replay

5 votes, 4.8%

104 total votes

8 comments

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