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Wendie Old has been a storyteller
and children's librarian for over 30 years. She is the author of seven biographies for middle schoolers and
one for early elementary school, as well as of three picture books for younger readers.
Two of the picture books, Busy Toes and Busy Fingers, were
three-writer collaborations and thus written under the pen name C. W.
Bowie. Ms. Old takes many of the photographs for her own books and each
one has a story behind it. (There's even a secret joke in the George
Washington biograpghy.)
In honor of the upcoming 100-year aniniversary of flight, she recently published two biographies of the Wright Brothers: To Fly for younger readers and Wright Brothers for older readers. The mother of two daughters, Ms. Old is also owned by several cats, two hairy dogs, and a horse. She enjoys talking to both children and adults about many topics, especially about reading good books.
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| Left: Wendie Old's books cover a wide range of historical and contemporary subjects. Above (left to right): Claudine Wirths, Mary Bowman-Kruhm, and Wendie Old, collaborators under the pen name C.W. Bowie. | |
"Love the writing,
love the writing,
love the writing
... the rest will follow,"
-- Jane Yolen
"Talent is way down on the list of things you need to write; it comes
in a distant fourth, after persistance, motivation, and discipline. And the
reason is that "talent" is as common as mud; what's rare is the motivation to
sit down and actually do something with it, the discipline to do it
regularly, and the persistance to stick with it until it's finished. I know
oodles of extremely talented people who will never publish anything, because
they won't ever sit down and actually *write* anything, much less finish it."
-- Patricia Wrede
