Book Description from Back Cover

Background on Linda Sue Park

As a student in elementary and high school, Linda Sue Park had several poems published in magazines for children and young people. At Stanford University, she competed on the gymnastics team and eventually graduated with a degree in English. She went on to earn advanced degrees in literature from Trinity College in Ireland and the University of London.

She worked at many jobs-in public relations, advertising, journalism, and teaching-before writing her first children's book, Seesaw Girl, which was published in 1999. The Kite Fighters came out in 2000, followed by A Single Shard, which was awarded the 2002 Newbery Medal for excellence in children's literature. In March 2002, she published her fourth novel, When My Name Was Keoko. Five picture books are forthcoming, as well as several short stories in anthologies for young adults.

Linda Sue Park also writes poetry for young people and adults; her children's poetry has been published in Cricket magazine. She lives in western New York with her family: two children, her husband, a dog, and a hamster. Besides reading and writing, she likes to cook, travel, give dinner parties, watch movies and baseball, and do the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink.