Katherine Paterson was born in 1932 in Huai'an, China, to American Presbyterian missionary parents, and her childhood was spent moving between China and the United States. She trained for mission work herself. When China closed to Americans in 1957, she went to Japan instead and lived there for several years. Her first novels, historical stories set in Japan, followed.
Her books move between countries and centuries. The Master Puppeteer follows a boy in the puppet theatre of old Japan, Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom is set in China, and the more recent My Brigadista Year sends a teenager into Cuba's literacy campaign. Her American stories sit closer to home: The Great Gilly Hopkins is about a prickly foster child, and Jacob Have I Loved about the jealousy between twin sisters. The subjects are often hard, such as grief, envy and being an outsider, and she handles them plainly.
Bridge to Terabithia won the Newbery Medal in 1978, and Jacob Have I Loved won it in 1981. The Master Puppeteer and The Great Gilly Hopkins each took a National Book Award. For her whole body of work she received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1998 and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2006. She was named a Library of Congress Living Legend in 2000 and served as the second National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Bridge to Terabithia has been filmed twice, for PBS in 1985 and by Disney in 2007.
Start with Bridge to Terabithia, the book she is best known for and the clearest picture of what she does. Then try The Great Gilly Hopkins for something sharper, or Jacob Have I Loved for a family story with more edge.
