| Paul Fleischman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Paul Fleischman Santa Monica, California, United States |
| Occupation | Author, Playwright |
| Genres | Children's Literature |
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www.paulfleischman.net |
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Paul Fleischman (born 1952) is an American author of children's books. Both he and his father, children's author Sid Fleischman, have won the Newbery Medal. Paul is the 2012 US author nominee for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award.
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Paul Fleischman was born in Monterey, CA and raised in Santa Monica, CA. At 19, he took a cross-country bicycle and train trip which ended with him living in a 200-year-old house in New Hampshire. The experience led to his historical fiction dealing with the Puritans' Indian wars, colonial peddlers, Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic, and the Civil War. He attended college at University of California Berkeley and the University of New Mexico. Before writing full time, he worked as a bagel baker, library shelver, bookstore clerk, and proofreader, the last leading to his grammar watchdog groups Colonwatch and The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to English.
Fleischman's first books were written while he was still in college, inspired by his reading of folklore. His musical interests are reflected in his collections of poems for two and four speakers, chamber music for speaking voices. Multiple points of view have been a hallmark of his fiction, beginning with Bull Run (1993), the first of the many multiple-viewpoint novels to be published for children. This format was further explored in Seedfolks, the 50-voice aural collage Seek, the seven-plays-in-one Zap, and the joined Cinderella variants in Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal. The importance of history, community, art, and imagination have been frequent themes in his work.
Fleischman won the Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices in 1989. He's received a National Book Award nomination for Breakout in 2003, a Newbery Honor for Graven Images in 1983, the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for Bull Run (1994), the California Young Reader Medal for Weslandia (2002), Boston Globe-Horn Book Honors for Joyful Noise and Saturnalia, the PEN USA Literary Award for The Dunderheads (2010), awards from the Commonwealth Club and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and is the United States' 2012 author nominee for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award.