Wendelin Van Draanen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wendelin Van Draanen (born January 6, 1965, Chicago, Illinois) is an American author of children's books.[1]

Biography

One of Van Draanen's early influences was Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. According to the author, the book was "about the magic of growing up and [it] reminded me of all the wonderful mischief my brothers and I got into when we were young." Bradbury's work inspired Van Draanen to write How I Survived Being a Girl, which was published by HarperCollins in 1997.[2] Other early influences include Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Encyclopedia Brown. In college, the Van Draanen family business was burned down, leading to financial hardship. Wendelin turned to writing to alleviate stress and she published her first book in 1997, titled How I Survived Being a Girl.[3]

Van Draanen is the daughter of chemists who emigrated to the U.S. from Holland. She worked as a high school math teacher and computer science teacher before writing became her career.[4]

Van Draanen lives in California[5] with her husband Mark Pearson and two sons, Colton and Connor.

Selected works

Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief won the 1999 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Juvenile Mystery.[6] Van Draanen's most recent book in the series, Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack, was published in 2012.

Runaway, a companion book to the Sammy Keyes series, is about a girl named Holly who tries to escape from her latest foster home.

In 2004-2005 Van Draanen wrote a four-book series for younger readers called Shredderman, about a 5th grade boy who assumes a secret identity to help him win the battle for truth and justice.

She also wrote the standalone teen romance Flipped in a he-said she-said style with the two protagonists alternately presenting their perspective on a shared set of events. The two protagonists (Bryce and Juliana)are neighbors.

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Wendelin Van Draanen, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 70+ works in 370+ publications in 12 languages and 51,000+ library holdings.[1]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Shredderman series

  • Shredderman 1: Secret Identity (2004)
  • Shredderman 2: Attack of the Tagger (2005)
  • Shredderman 3: Meet the Gecko (2005)
  • Shredderman 4: Enemy Spy (2004)

Sammy Keyes series

  • Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief (Aug-1998) (1999 Edgar Award, Best Juvenile)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man (Apr-1998)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy (Oct-1999)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf (May-2000)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary (Feb-2001) (2001 Edgar Award nominee, Best Juvenile)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy (May-2002)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (Apr-2003) (2003 Edgar Award nominee, Best Juvenile)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception (2003) (2004 Edgar Award nominee, Best Juvenile)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen (Apr-2006)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway (2005)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things (May-2007) (2008 Edgar Award nominee, Best Juvenile)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Cold Hard Cash (Oct-2008)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher (October 2010)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls (Oct-2011)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Power of Justice Jack (Jul-2012)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City (Jan-2013)
  • Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise (Sep-2013)

The Gecko & Sticky

  • The Gecko & Sticky: Villain's Lair
  • The Gecko & Sticky: The Greatest Power
  • The Gecko & Sticky: Sinister Substitute (2010)
  • The Gecko & Sticky: The Power Potion (2010)

Non-series

  • How I Survived Being a Girl (1997)
  • Flipped (2001) (major motion picture)
  • Swear to Howdy (2003)
  • Runaway (2006) (Texas Lone Star Book) (Based on part of one of the Sammy Keyes novels)
  • Confessions of a Serial Kisser (2008)
  • The Running Dream (2011) (Texas Lone Star Book)

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 WorldCat Identities: Van Draanen, Wendelin
  2. ↑ Newman, Patricia. "Who Wrote That? Featuring Wendelin Van Draanen," California Kids! (US). May 2002; retrieved 2011-05-11
  3. ↑ Kumar, Lisa, ed. (2010). "Van DRAANEN, Wendelin". Something about the Author 207. Gale. pp. 167–171. ISBN 9781414442204. 
  4. ↑ Good Reads, Wendelin Van Draanen
  5. ↑ According to an old Flipped novel back cover, she lived in Fresno, California; but whether she still lives there is still unknown.
  6. ↑ Edgar Awards Database -- 1999, retrieved 2011-05-11

References

  • "Spring Attractions: Children's Authors Talk about New Projects and What's on the Horizon". (April 1, 2002). Publishers Weekly, pp. 24–26

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Wendelin Van Draanen
Authority control
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.