Kathy Lasky, the Newbery Honor author of more than fifty fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults, first realized she could be a writer when she was about ten years old, and her family was driving at night in their car with the top down. "The sky looked so interesting – you couldn’t see the stars because of these wooly clouds. And I said it looked like a sheepback sky. My mom turned around and said, ‘Kathryn, you should be a writer.’ When my mom said that, I thought, "Wow, maybe I will be."

After college, Lasky wrote for magazines and worked as a teacher. It was while Lasky was teaching that she wrote her first published book. Following a grandfather and his grandson on a typical weekend day, the book was called I Have Four Names for My Grandfather and featured photographs by Lasky’s husband, Christopher Knight.

Since then, she has written a variety of books – from historical fiction to picture books to nonfiction. For Scholastic, she has written Beyond the Burning Time, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, True North, an NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People, Born in the Breezes, Porkenstein and the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series. She has also contributed many titles to the Dear America, Royal Diaries, and My America series. She has received the Washington Post – Children’s Book Guild Award for her contribution to children’s nonfiction.

When doing research for a book, Lasky usually begins in the children’s room of the public library. She also relies on talking to friends who are historians as well as calling librarians and historical societies. "I love doing research," Lasky says. "It’s really fun. It’s like a treasure hunt." There is no difference whether she is writing about a fictional character, such as in The Journal of Augustus Pelletier: The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804, for the My Name is America series, or a real character, such as in Elizabeth I: Red Rose of the House of Tudor, England, 1544, for the Royal Diaries series. "My responsibility as a writer for authenticity and accuracy does not vary whether the character is real or fictional," states Lasky.

I want young readers to come away with a sense of joy for life. I want to draw them into a world where they’re really going to connect with these characters.