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Marion’s Year In Books

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Marion Dane Bauer

Goodreads Author

Born

in Oglesby, Illinois, The United States

Website

http://www.mariondanebauer.com

Twitter

mdanebauer

Member Since

November 2009

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/mariondanebauer

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Marion Dane Bauer is the author of more than one hundred 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 firs Marion Dane Bauer is the author of more than one hundred 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 ...more

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Marion Dane Bauer’s books

Average rating: 3.88 · 36,017 ratings · 4,379 reviews · 180 distinct works • Similar authors

	On My Honor 3.69 avg rating — 6,662 ratings — published 1986 — 57 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Lois Lowry (Goodreads Author), Francesca Lia Block (Goodreads Author) 3.95 avg rating — 5,097 ratings — published 1995 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Toes, Ears, & Nose! (A Lift-the-Flap Book) by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Karen Katz 4.11 avg rating — 3,616 ratings — published 2003 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Runt 4.05 avg rating — 2,435 ratings — published 2002 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Stuff of Stars by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Ekua Holmes (Illustrator) 4.13 avg rating — 1,719 ratings — published 2018 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	How Do I Love You? by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Caroline Jayne Church (Illustrator) 4.31 avg rating — 1,484 ratings — published 2009 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Land of the Buffalo Bones: The Diary of Mary Ann Elizabeth Rodgers, An English Girl in Minnesota 3.67 avg rating — 1,582 ratings — published 2003 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Little Dog, Lost by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Jennifer A. Bell (Goodreads Author) 3.95 avg rating — 1,368 ratings — published 2012 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Winter Dance by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Richard Jones (Illustrator) 4.15 avg rating — 991 ratings — published 2017 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Little Cat's Luck by Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author), Jennifer A. Bell (Goodreads Author) (Illustrator) 4.03 avg rating — 679 ratings — published 2016 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Series by Marion Dane Bauer

Wondrous World (3 books)
by

Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author),

Hari & Deepti (Illustrator)

4.12 avg rating — 1,893 ratings

Ghost (4 books)
by

Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author),

Peter Ferguson

3.63 avg rating — 709 ratings

50 States to Celebrate (16 books)
by

Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author),

C.B. Canga (Illustrator)

4.02 avg rating — 287 ratings

Our Universe (3 books)
by

Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author),

John Wallace (Goodreads Author) (Illustrations)

3.76 avg rating — 119 ratings

Alison (3 books)
by

Marion Dane Bauer (Goodreads Author),

Laurie Spenser (Illustrations)

3.23 avg rating — 39 ratings

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Marion is Currently Reading

Marion Dane Bauer is currently reading

Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does

by Philip Ball

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Mar 08, 2024 07:05PM

Marion Dane Bauer is currently reading

When the Body Says No

by Gabor Maté

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Mar 06, 2024 06:57PM

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The Light Through the Leaves

by Glendy Vanderah

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Mar 01, 2024 11:32AM

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Marion’s Recent Updates

Marion Dane Bauer rated a book it was amazing The Science of Last Things: Essays on Deep Time and the Boundaries of the Self by Ellen Wayland-Smith	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 30, 2026 07:40PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Science of Last Things by Ellen Wayland-Smith. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Science of Last Things by Ellen Wayland-Smith <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Marion Dane Bauer rated a book it was amazing Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death by Sam Parnia MD PhD	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Marion Dane Bauer rated a book it was amazing Nanoparticles: Allen & Unwin shorts by Charlotte Wood (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Marion Dane Bauer rated a book it was amazing Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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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

13 likes

“It is the nature of stories to leave out far more than they include.”
― Marion Dane Bauer, The Very Little Princess

tags: stories, storytelling

10 likes

“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

8 likes

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Polls

What frequently challenged or banned book (or book about censorship) for children and/or young adults should we read in March and April 2013?

Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry

27 votes, 35.5%

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

24 votes, 31.6%

Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite

11 votes, 14.5%

The Little Black Fish by Samad Beh-Rang

9 votes, 11.8%

On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

5 votes, 6.6%

76 total votes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Book Club/Troubles: Last Name Author Game	192	58	Nov 09, 2011 12:05PM
Cover 2 Cover: Favorite Book(s) Of All TIME!	82	64	Jan 03, 2012 05:05PM
Parents of Tweens...: Newbery Honor Books	9	71	Feb 16, 2014 09:22PM
What's the Name o...: SOLVED. A book about two brothers and some kittens? [s]	7	47	Feb 06, 2017 04:02PM
Around the World ...: Minnesota	14	324	Apr 05, 2018 06:42AM
Book Riot's Read ...: Read Harder Challenge Plans	370	2650	May 21, 2018 12:53PM
Mock Caldecott 2027: November Reads - 2019	13	92	Nov 26, 2018 03:15PM
Mock Caldecott 2027: * 2019 Mock Caldecott Voting -Round 2 of 3	37	143	Jan 12, 2019 03:39PM
What's the Name o...: SOLVED. tween mystery from early 90s-girl meets boy smells like smoke [Spoiler ahead...] [s]	15	458	May 01, 2019 07:26PM
Children's Books: July 2019: Coretta Scott King Award	13	18	Jul 26, 2019 02:42PM

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