Florence Parry Heide

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Florence Parry Heide is a bestselling American children's writer. Born and raised in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, she spent two years at Wilson College, in Philadelphia, PA, before transferring to UCLA, from which she graduated in 1931. She took a career in advertising and public relations in New York City before returning to her hometown during World War II. She met her husband, Donald C. Heide, in October, 1943. They were married six weeks later, on November 27, 1943.

After the War, she and her husband moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin. He began a private law practice from which he retired in 1982. She devoted herself to her children and begain her career as a children's author only as the youngest of her children left home for college in the late 1960s. Since then, she has published more than 100 children's books--from picture books to adolescent novels--and several collections of poetry. She is also, with Sylvia Van Clief, the author of a number of songs. Her best known works are a series of story books about the curious adventures of a boy named Treehorn, which includes titles such as The Shrinking of Treehorn (1971) and Treehorn's Treasure (1981). She has worked with renowned illustrators, like Edward Gorey and Jules Fieffer, and has won numerous awards for her work. She is also the mother of authors Judith Heide Gilliland and Roxanne Heide Pierce, with whom she has co-written several other critically acclaimed books.

Heide still lives in Kenosha and speaks often at local events. She is most famous in Kenosha, perhaps, for the Fourth of July parade she would organize each year: hundreds of children with their bikes decorated would gather outside her home and ride twice around her block to the strenuous beat of her friend, Jack Andrea's, drum. Although she has since moved, the parade continues each year in her honor.

[edit] References

• Biography from Candlewick Press
• Houghton Mifflin short biography
• Amazon book list by author