Katherine Paterson
Teacher Resource File

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[Biography] [Other Biography Links] [Criticism]] [Lesson Plans] [Bibliography] [References]

Katherine Paterson

By Catherine Morris and Inez Ramsey

You can visit Katherine Paterson at her official Web site, Katherine Paterson. Katherine Womeldorf Paterson was born in Qing Jiang, Jiangsu, China in 1932. She discusses her early life at the Children's Book Guild site, Katherine Paterson. Her parents were Christian missionaries to China and helped develop her deep religious faith. While living in China, she not only learned the Chinese language but also respect for people's differences, humility and patience during times of difficulty. By the time she was fifteen, the family had moved fifteen times. Because they moved so frequently the young Katherine sometimes felt lonely and different from the other young people her own age. She loved to read and wrote stories as a way of overcoming her loneliness. Yet she made friends whom she could not bear to leave when the time came to move again. In an interview in Bookpage in March of 1993, she said, "I always knew I was worth something because I had many wonderful friends who knew all my faults and failings and they still cared for me."

Katherine Paterson went to Kings College in Bristol, Tennessee and went to graduate school in Richmond, Virginia. Her teachers encouraged her to write seriously. One professor in particular helped her to understand that she would never accomplish anything if she did not try. She was afraid of being a failure or not being the best. It took nine years before for her first book, Sign of the Chrysanthemum, was published in 1991.

During this period she was also balancing the roles of being a busy wife and the mother of four children. She published more books. She also recovered from an operable cancer. Her family was touched by tragedy when her son's best friend was killed by lightning. In dealing with this tragedy and her personal grief, she wrote The Bridge to Terabithia, her first Newbery Medal winner. Her many experiences as a child, young adult, wife and mother have provided her inspiration in writing her novels. She credits her experiences in China and Japan and her strong Biblical heritage for adding deeper dimensions to her books and for making her the person she is today. You can find out more about her thoughts at Ask the Author.

Katherine Paterson encourages young people to read fiction. Through fiction, young readers can experience life at a safe distance while preparing themselves for later experiences in their own lives. A reader learns about characters by knowing their souls and by experienceing their lives at a safe and neutral distance where danger does not threaten. Young readers respond to her believable, well-developed characters whose stories are honest and true to life. Her aim is to write a story so that the story and its characters have a life of their own. Young readers sometimes disagree with the ending of a story, such as The Bridge to Terabithia, but she feels that the ending must complement and grow out of the story.

Katherine Paterson has won many prestigious awards for her books. She recently was the recipient of the Scott O'Dell Award. You can read her Acceptance Speech. Among her other awards are the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award for Children's Literature, the American Book Award, the American Library Association's Best Books for Young Adults Award, the New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year Award, the School Library Journal Best Books Award, the Children's Book Council's Children's Choice Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award runner-up from the Mystery Writers of America, and numerous others. She was honored with the Hans Christian Anderson Award which is given every two years in recognition of her lifetime contributions to children's literature.

She and her husband John who is a Presbyterian pastor live in Barre, Vermont. You can write to her care of her publishers:
c/o Crowell Junior Books
10 East 53rd Street
New York: New York 10022.

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Other Biography Links

Katherine Paterson
From the Educational Paperback Association.
Katherine Paterson
Biography from Penguin Putnam

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Criticism

Vision of Self in Katherine Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved
Novel discussion by Patricia A. Liddie, From ALAN
Review, Spring 1994.
Katherine Paterson's Lyddie: Travel Within and Beyond
Discussion of the novel by Laura Zaidman, ALAN Review,
Spring 1994.
What Johnny Can't Read; Censorship in American Libraries
Article by Suzanne Fisher Staples, ALAN Review, Winter 1996.
Validating the Personal in Katherine Paterson's Park Quest
Article by Robert L. Lockhart, in ALAN Review, Winter 1998.
Lyddie and Oliver: Instructional Framework for Linking Historical Fiction to the Classics
Article by Janis Harmon, in ALAN Review, Winter 1998.
A Bridge Too Far - But Why?
Article by John Simmons in ALAN Review Winter 1998.
Sounds and Pictures in Words: Images in Literature for Young Adults
Review of several young adult works including Lyddie;
by Connie S. Zitlow in ALAN Review Winter 2000.
The Treatment of Religion and the Independent Investigation of Spiritual Truth in Fiction for Adolescents
Analysis includes Jacob Have I Loved; by Dara Gay Shaw
in ALAN Review, Winter 1995.
Acting Up Across the Curriculum: Using Creative Dramatics to Explore Adolescent Literature
Article by Jeffrey Kaplan in ALAN Review Spring 1997.

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Classroom Use of Paterson's Novels

Acting Up Across the Curriculum: Using Creative Dramatics to Explore Adolescent Literature
Includes Paterson's novels; by Jeffrey Kaplan in ALAN
Review, Spring 1997.
SCORE Cyberguide #1: Lyddie Middle school
SCORE Cyberguide #2: Lyddie Middle school
SCORE Cyberguide. The Master Puppeteer
SCORE Cyberguide: Sign of the Chrysanthemum Middle school level
Guide to "Bridge to Terabithia Anticipation guide; grades 5-8. From KidReach.
See also Guide to "Bridge to Terabithia. No. 2
and Guide to "Bridge to Terabithia. No. 3
Guide for "Flip-Flop Girl"
Grades 5-8. Anticipation guide. From KidReach
Katherine Paterson's Lyddie: Travel Within and Beyond
By Laura Zaidman. In ALAN Review
Vision of Self in Katherine Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved
By Patricia Liddie. In ALAN Review
Jacob Have I Loved
Uses American Memory Collection to introduce the novel

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Bibliography

Bibliography of Selected Books

Angels & Other Strangers: Family Christmas Stories HarperCollins, 1979.
Bridge to Terabithia HarperCollins, 1977.
Come Sing, Jimmy Jo Dutton, 1985.
Flip-Flop Girl Dutton, 1994.
Gates of Excellence: On Reading and Writing Books for Children Lodestar, 1981.
The Great Gilly Hopkins HarperCollins, 1978.
Jacob Have I Loved HarperCollins, 1980.
Justice for All People Friendship, 1973.
The Kings's Equal HarperCollines, 1992.
Lyddie Dutton, 1991.
The Master Puppeteer HarperCollins, 1976.
A Midnight Clear: Twelve Family Stories for the Christmas Season.
Of Nightingales That Weep Harpercollins, 1974.
Park's Quest Dutton, 1988.
Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom Dutton, 1983.
Sign of the Chrysanthemum HarperCollins, 1991.
The Smallest Cow in the World HarperCollins, 1991.
Tale of the Mandarin Ducks Dutton, 1990.
To Make Men Free [curriculum unit], John Knox, 1973.
Who Am I? [curriculum unit] Eerdmans, 1992.

With John Paterson. Consider the Lilies: Flowers of the Bible HarperCollins, 1986.

Translation for The Crane Wife by Sumiko Yagawa, Morrow, 1981.
The Tongue-Cut Sparrow by Momoko Ishii, Lodestar, 1987.

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References

Putnam Pub. Company, WWW site
Internet Public Library WWW site
Book Pages WWW site
"Katherine Paterson: On Writing a Different Kind of Happily-ever-after-story" By Susan Wilde. Bookpage, March, 1993.
"Profile: Katherine Paterson" By Linda T. Jones. Language Arts, v58, n2, Feb. 1981, p189196.

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