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Charis Cotter

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Charis has always loved books and reading. Her favorite present as a child was a dusty box of second-hand Bobbsey Twins books her mother found at a rummage sale. She grew up in Cabbagetown and Parkdale in downtown Toronto, and she lived for the summers when she would go to camp and live in a tent. She enjoyed singing by the campfire and acting in plays at camp and at her local library.

Her family lived in a small house that was overflowing with children, dogs, cats, grandmothers, and parents. At one point, eleven people lived there! Charis liked making up stories in her head and daydreaming. She would crawl into a cupboard in the basement and sit among blankets and winter coats, eating crackers and reading her Bobbsey Twins books. She also h...more Charis has always loved books and reading. Her favorite present as a child was a dusty box of second-hand Bobbsey Twins books her mother found at a rummage sale. She grew up in Cabbagetown and Parkdale in downtown Toronto, and she lived for the summers when she would go to camp and live in a tent. She enjoyed singing by the campfire and acting in plays at camp and at her local library.

Her family lived in a small house that was overflowing with children, dogs, cats, grandmothers, and parents. At one point, eleven people lived there! Charis liked making up stories in her head and daydreaming. She would crawl into a cupboard in the basement and sit among blankets and winter coats, eating crackers and reading her Bobbsey Twins books. She also had a stash of Trixie Belden books and lots of fairy tales. When Charis was nine, she discovered J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, which became her favorite book for life.

Charis wrote plays and produced them at school and at camp. She also wrote stories and poems. Her mother, who taught creative writing, helped Charis learn to write well. Charis studied English at university because it allowed her to read a lot of books. Then she went to acting school in Toronto and England. She worked in theater in Toronto for a few years; her favorite role was as the killer on a murder mystery train that went across Canada.

To earn a living in between acting jobs, Charis worked in a variety of places, including a bookstore, a film company, a vegetarian restaurant, a flea market, and a kindergarten. In her most ladylike job, she wrote invitations by hand for the Ontario Lieutenant-Governor's Office.

When Charis had her daughter, Zoe, she changed careers and started doing freelance editing and writing. This gave her the opportunity to read a lot more books on fascinating subjects: astronomy, canoes, gardening, cooking, human evolution, and Toronto's history. She soon found herself writing about history, and she got hooked on the past. She wrote a book about Toronto in the 1920s and 1930s, illustrated with photographs from that time. Toronto Between the Wars: Life in the City 1919-1939 won the Heritage Toronto Award of Excellence in 2005.

Charis’s books reflect her fascination with the lives of famous people: Kids Who Rule: The Remarkable Lives of Five Child Monarchs (2007) and Wonder Kids: The Remarkable Lives of Nine Child Prodigies (2008) looked at the lives of child monarchs and child prodigies, while her latest title, Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors (2009) explores the childhood of famous authors. Charis’s fascination with the supernatural resulted in A World Full of Ghosts (2009), a book for younger children, which offers ghost stories from many different cultures.

In the winter, Charis works at home in downtown Toronto, writing books in a room with beautiful trees painted on the walls. In the summer, she lives in her cottage in Newfoundland, right beside the ocean. She lives with her daughter Zoe and her cat Wanda. Zoe has been a great inspiration for Charis. When Zoe was one, she got her first library card, and the two of them would read piles of books every day. Now Zoe helps Charis get ideas for books, and helps keep her in touch with what children like to read. Charis thinks the most important thing for aspiring writers to do is spend a lot of time daydreaming. Reading lots of books is a good idea too, but nothing beats letting your imagination wander.(less)

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Books by Charis Cotter

Average rating: 3.92 · 24 ratings · 7 reviews · 5 distinct works

	Kids Who Rule: The Remarkable Lives of Five Child Monarchs 3.55 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2007 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors 4.71 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2009 — 2 editions	My rating:
	A World Full of Ghosts by Charis Cotter, Marc Mongeau (Illustrator) 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2009 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Toronto Between the Wars: Life in the City 1919-1939 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2004	My rating:
	Wonder Kids: The Remarkable Lives of Nine Child Prodigies 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2008 — 2 editions	My rating: