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Marion Dane Bauer

Goodreads author profile

url

http://www.goodreads.com/MarionDaneBauer

born

November 20, 1938 in Oglesby, Illinois, The United States

gender

female

website

http://www.mariondanebauer.com

twitter username

mdanebauer

member since

November 2009

About this author

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Marion Dane Bauer is the author of more than eighty books for young people, ranging from novelty and picture books through early readers, both fiction and nonfiction, books on writing, and middle-grade and young-adult novels. She has won numerous awards, including several Minnesota Book Awards, a Jane Addams Peace Association Award for RAIN OF FIRE, an American Library Association Newbery Honor Award for ON MY HONOR, a number of state children's choice awards and the Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota for the body of her work.

She is also the editor of and a contributor to the ground-breaking collection of gay and lesbian short stories, Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence.

Marion was one of the founding faculty and the first Fac...more Marion Dane Bauer is the author of more than eighty books for young people, ranging from novelty and picture books through early readers, both fiction and nonfiction, books on writing, and middle-grade and young-adult novels. She has won numerous awards, including several Minnesota Book Awards, a Jane Addams Peace Association Award for RAIN OF FIRE, an American Library Association Newbery Honor Award for ON MY HONOR, a number of state children's choice awards and the Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota for the body of her work.

She is also the editor of and a contributor to the ground-breaking collection of gay and lesbian short stories, Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence.

Marion was one of the founding faculty and the first Faculty Chair for the Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her writing guide, the American Library Association Notable WHAT'S YOUR STORY? A YOUNG PERSON'S GUIDE TO WRITING FICTION, is used by writers of all ages. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen different languages.

She has six grandchildren and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her partner and a cavalier King Charles spaniel, Dawn.

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INTERVIEW WITH MARION DANE BAUER
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Q. What brought you to a career as a writer?

A. I seem to have been born with my head full of stories. For almost as far back as I can remember, I used most of my unoccupied moments--even in school when I was supposed to be doing other "more important" things--to make up stories in my head. I sometimes got a notation on my report card that said, "Marion dreams." It was not a compliment. But while the stories I wove occupied my mind in a very satisfying way, they were so complex that I never thought of trying to write them down. I wouldn't have known where to begin. So though I did all kinds of writing through my teen and early adult years--letters, journals, essays, poetry--I didn't begin to gather the craft I needed to write stories until I was in my early thirties. That was also when my last excuse for not taking the time to sit down to do the writing I'd so long wanted to do started first grade.

Q. And why write for young people?

A. Because I get my creative energy in examining young lives, young issues. Most people, when they enter adulthood, leave childhood behind, by which I mean that they forget most of what they know about themselves as children. Of course, the ghosts of childhood still inhabit them, but they deal with them in other forms--problems with parental authority turn into problems with bosses, for instance--and don't keep reaching back to the original source to try to fix it, to make everything come out differently than it did the first time. Most children's writers, I suspect, are fixers. We return, again and again, usually under the cover of made-up characters, to work things through. I don't know that our childhoods are necessarily more painful than most. Every childhood has pain it, because life has pain in it at every stage. The difference is that we are compelled to keep returning to the source.

Q. You write for a wide range of ages. Do you write from a different place in writing for preschoolers than for young adolescents?

A. In a picture book or board book, I'm always writing from the womb of the family, a place that--while it might be intruded upon by fears, for instance--is still, ultimately, safe and nurturing. That's what my own early childhood was like, so it's easy for me to return to those feelings and to recreate them.
When I write for older readers, I'm writing from a very different experience. My early adolescence, especially, was a time of deep alienation, mostly from my peers but in some ways from my family as well. And so I write my older stories out of that pain, that longing for connection. A story has to have a problem at its core. No struggle, no (less)

17 posts
Marion Dane Bauer's Blog

Computers I Have Known

I’ve been thinking lately about computers I have worked with. I don’t usually have much of a relationship with machines. The cars I drive are only practical necessities, something to move me farther and faster than my feet can manage on their own. I have strong opinions about stoves, hate the electric ones, love the instant-on/instant-off of a gas flame. And I find a stick blender indispensible...

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Published on May 22, 2012 06:31

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Books by Marion Dane Bauer

Average rating: 3.78 · 17,311 ratings · 1,250 reviews · 111 distinct works

	Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Lois Lowry, Francesca Lia Block 3.92 avg rating — 1,311 ratings — published 1994 — 7 editions	My rating:
	On My Honor 3.52 avg rating — 1,313 ratings — published 1986 — 20 editions	My rating:
	Runt 3.85 avg rating — 451 ratings — published 2002 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Toes, Ears, & Nose!: A Lift-the-Flap Book by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Karen Katz 4.00 avg rating — 298 ratings — published 2003 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Land of the Buffalo Bones: The Diary of Mary Ann Elizabeth Rodgers, An English Girl in Minnesota, New Yeovil, Minnesota 1873 (Dear America Series) 3.52 avg rating — 333 ratings — published 2003	My rating:
	A Mama for Owen 4.43 avg rating — 96 ratings — published 2007 — 5 editions	My rating:
	The Blue Ghost (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)) by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Suling Wang (Illustrator) 3.28 avg rating — 116 ratings — published 2005 — 7 editions	My rating:
	How Do I Love You? by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Caroline Jayne Church (Illustrator) 4.01 avg rating — 82 ratings — published 2009	My rating:
	A Bear Named Trouble 3.29 avg rating — 98 ratings — published 2005 — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Longest Night by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Ted Lewin (Illustrator) 3.79 avg rating — 75 ratings — published 2009	My rating:

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Series by Marion Dane Bauer

Ghost (4 books)
by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Peter Ferguson

3.32 avg rating — 210 ratings

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Marion's Recent Updates

Marion Bauer is now friends with Lily
May 28, 2012 12:23am
Marion Bauer made a comment on The Very Little Princess — Readers Reviews "Because of the unusual nature of this story, I am particularly interested in readers' response to it. Anything you have to say will be of interest. "
Feb 13, 2010 10:57am
Marion Bauer liked S.'s review of The Very Little Princess: " I won this from Firstreads. It's a lovely story of a young girl and a three inch doll who comes to life, something most little girls dream about and believe in. "
Feb 13, 2010 10:54am · see review

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Quotes by Marion Dane Bauer

“A good friend of mine once said, "I have never met a bigot who was a reader as a child.”
― Marion Dane Bauer, Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence

tags: book , inspirational , peace

5 people liked it

“We writers can use our own longing - and frequently do - without ever having to understand or analyze it. That is why our stories are often wiser than we are.”
― Marion Dane Bauer

3 people liked it

“The power of fiction is that it gives us, as readers, the opportunity to move inside another human being, to look out through that person's eyes, hear with her ears, think with his thoughts, feel with her feelings. It is the only form of art which can accomplish that feat so deeply, so completely. And thus it is the perfect bridge for helping us coming to know the other - the other inside as well as outside ourselves. (x)”
― Marion Dane Bauer, Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence

3 people liked it

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Polls

What frequently challenged or banned book for adults should we read in January, February and March 2011?

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

40 votes, 29.4%

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

26 votes, 19.1%

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

14 votes, 10.3%

The Dead Zone by Stephen King

14 votes, 10.3%

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

14 votes, 10.3%

The Joy of Gay Sex, Revised & Expanded Third Edition by Charles Silverstein

9 votes, 6.6%

Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Dane Bauer

7 votes, 5.1%

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

7 votes, 5.1%

This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

3 votes, 2.2%

Dictionary of American slang by Harold Wentworth

2 votes, 1.5%

136 total votes

1 comment

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Newbery Award...: 1987 Honor - On My Honor	1	5	Feb 07, 2010 04:22pm
Book Club/Troubles: Last Name Author Game	192	12	Nov 09, 2011 12:05pm
Cover 2 Cover: Favorite Book(s) Of All TIME!	83	63	Jan 03, 2012 05:05pm
Crazy Challenge C...: Talia's Reading Lists and Challenges	8	10	Mar 26, 2012 04:16pm
Crazy Challenge C...: A-Z Book Title Challenge - 2012	160	110	May 28, 2012 01:05pm

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