Authors >
Marion Dane Bauer

Marion  Dane Bauer

Marion Dane Bauer

Marion Dane Bauer is the author of many books for young readers, including the Newbery Honor book On My Honor and the New York Times bestseller My Mother Is Mine. Her other titles include A Mama for Owen, If You Were Born a Kitten, Grandmother's Song,... Read full bio

Author Revealed:
Q. What is your motto or maxim?
A. Life is a gift.
Learn more about Marion Dane Bauer
X Are you a fan?

Find out about new releases by this author, recommendations, special offers, and more.

My life in 8 words: "Challenging, fulfilling, interesting, filled with gratitude and hope"
March 12, 2013
That was the headline for an e-mail I received last week . . . "Why wait?"  The message was from Diana, and with her...
Read More
March 5, 2013
Whoever it was who said "Ninety percent of the pleasure of travel is in anticipation and the other ten percent is in...
Read More
February 26, 2013
Not long after I fell on the early December ice, dislocated my elbow and broke the radial bone, I wrote about having discovered...
Read More
February 25, 2013
"Must they be funny?"  It's what Shonna McNasby asked following my last blog.  And her thoughtful question calls for a...
Read More
February 13, 2013
 It was a lyrical picture-book text.  The subject was spring.  And it bounced back because the editor found the...
Read More
February 5, 2013
Last July I was on the east coast, having traveled there to receive an honorary MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts where I...
Read More
January 30, 2013
Perhaps it's a curse, this business of putting your thoughts out there for other folks to see. When you do your mulling silently...
Read More
January 23, 2013
Every time I happen across a children's television program where adult actors are pretending to be children I am grateful that...
Read More
January 23, 2013
Read More
January 16, 2013
“How do you know,” a reader asked, “when a picture book is right?” She was writing in response to my blog about my most...
Read More
January 8, 2013
If necessity is the mother of invention, then perhaps disaster—even a relatively small one—is the mother of...
Read More
January 3, 2013
Every morning, right around 6 a.m., I spring awake. I could stay in bed longer if I wanted to, but I'm done with sleep. I step...
Read More
January 2, 2013
“We need a sweet Christmas story, and we know you can do sweet.”

Read More
December 12, 2012
The boy sat at his desk, his long legs splayed in front of him, his face twisted in disbelief. "What makes you think you...
Read More
December 12, 2012
Once you're published, you hear a lot these days about "branding," about getting settled into and known in a single genre. No...
Read More
November 28, 2012
In the last few weeks I’ve been talking about writing for the pure love of writing, not as a career, and then I turned to...
Read More
November 26, 2012
Read More
November 14, 2012
Last week I talked about the benefits of writing for your own deep pleasure, not having to depend on this uncertain craft to...
Read More
November 7, 2012
One of my editors said to me recently, “I tried to support myself with my writing once. The whole endeavor lasted for about a...
Read More
November 2, 2012
I talked last week about the years I spent plumbing novels for scraps of ideas about God. What I found in church and discovered...
Read More
October 24, 2012
Last week I took on same-sex marriage. While I’m on a roll, I might as well talk about religion, too.

There aren’t...
Read More
October 17, 2012
In this new and sometimes bewildering world of blogging, bloggers are advised to stake out a territory. Define who you are, what...
Read More
October 8, 2012
Last week I talked about my new picture book, Halloween Forest, and about the function that fear has in a story, even for...
Read More
September 25, 2012
Halloween is almost upon us, and my newest picture book, Halloween Forest, is on the shelf.
When I received my first...
Read More
September 19, 2012
A while back, talking about gathering ideas for a sequel to Little Dog, Lost, I wrote, "I'm off and running, the story...
Read More
September 12, 2012
lawn...<span class=
Read More
September 10, 2012
writing for children...<span class=
Read More
August 29, 2012
When I first mentioned the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts in this blog, I...
Read More
August 15, 2012
Read More
August 8, 2012
Last week I quoted Dallas Bradel and her support for my call to keep adults more present in stories for young people. I agreed,...
Read More
August 6, 2012
Read More
August 6, 2012
I've been sharing my readers' responses to my July 10th blog about excluding adults from our stories.  Here's a response...
Read More
August 6, 2012
In 1976 when I published my first middle-grade novel, the lines were clearly drawn. If you wrote for young people, you had to be...
Read More
August 6, 2012
I mentioned last week that I’ve received a number of interesting comments on my blog on July 10th concerning the long-standing...
Read More
July 6, 2012
 I mentioned in my blog last week that in gathering ideas for another story set in Erthly, the home of Little Dog,...
Read More
July 6, 2012
Writers need other writers. It is such a solitary occupation, this sitting in front of a computer—or a typewriter or a pad of...
Read More
July 6, 2012
Usually ideas for a novel grow slowly, gathering over a period of weeks or months from bits and pieces that cling to a central...
Read More
July 6, 2012
I once had a friend who made a point of not telling me about the more dramatic events in her life because she was convinced that...
Read More
June 5, 2012
I love revising.  Revising is so much more fun than facing the terror of the blank page/computer screen.
And that's the...
Read More
June 5, 2012
I was born wanting to write. Or at least I was born with my head full of stories. (My elementary school teachers used to write...
Read More
June 5, 2012
Most readers, I suspect, assume that a story’s perceiving character will come from the writer’s own psyche, at least to some...
Read More
June 5, 2012
I've been thinking lately about computers I have worked with. I don't usually have much of a relationship with machines. The...
Read More
May 11, 2012
I've been talking about fictional character as illusion, created out of my own psyche or borrowed from the world around...
Read More
May 7, 2012
Win a set of 35 bookmarks (2" x 6" in size), one for each child in your classroom. “Like”
Read More
May 7, 2012
When my daughter was ten or eleven, she used to say from time to time, “Mom, write a book about me. You could call it...
Read More
May 7, 2012
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
Read More
April 19, 2012
Last week I mentioned that every story springs from the writer's own longing. Even the most careful readers would find it...
Read More
April 19, 2012
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE ...
Read More
April 19, 2012
Not every story has to be lived to be written. That's what imagination is for. If writers are going to produce more than one or...
Read More
April 19, 2012
I’ve just returned from a research trip for the young-adult novel I’m working on, Blue-Eyed Wolf. Well, actually, it...
Read More
March 22, 2012
How many times have I said it to my students and to other developing writers? When you're publishing a book, celebrate every...
Read More
March 15, 2012
When I began writing fiction for young people in the mid-seventies, I had absorbed one of the most basic rules for such books...
Read More
March 15, 2012
I got the idea for this blog when I was meditating this morning. Yes, I know, I'm not supposed to get ideas meditating. In fact,...
Read More
March 8, 2012
I have received letters from adults indignant about my novel, A Very Little Princess (the first of two stories about a...
Read More
March 1, 2012
I've been asked the question many times, almost always by non-writers. Or if the question comes from a writer it is, for...
Read More
February 24, 2012
That was the headline on a news story on NPRs “All Things Considered” last week.  Oh, no, I thought. Everything,...
Read More
February 17, 2012
I am about a third of the way into writing a young-adult novel called Blue-Eyed Wolf, far enough in to feel a sense of...
Read More
January 31, 2012
"Are you writing anything?" people often ask.  It is, I assume, just a conversation starter when they can't think of a...
Read More
January 31, 2012
I've been thinking about my career lately. Looking back over the thirty-five years since my first novel was published. Looking...
Read More
News:
Love Song for a Baby has won an award
about 13 hours ago
Little Dog, Lost will be released on May 01, 2013 in Trade Paperback
May 01, 2013
Little Dog, Lost is now available in Trade Paperback
May 01, 2013
Author Voices:
Why Wait?
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 06, 2013
Author Voices:
Betrayed by Dragon
Feb 27, 2013
Author Voices:
Must They Be Funny?
Feb 26, 2013
Author Voices:
The Sadness of Maturity
Feb 21, 2013
Author Voices:
Whale Watching
Feb 06, 2013
Jan 31, 2013
Author Voices:
Is Remembering Enough?
Jan 24, 2013
Author Voices:
What Did I Learn?
Jan 24, 2013
Author Voices:
How Do You Know?
Jan 17, 2013
Excerpt:
Chapter 1 from Little Dog, Lost
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 09, 2013
Flood! will be released on January 08, 2013 in
Jan 08, 2013

Marion Dane Bauer Revealed

Q. What is your motto or maxim? A. Life is a gift. Q. What trait is most noticeable about you? A. Pretty quiet. Q. How would you describe perfect happiness? A. A blue sky, lots of trees around, some water, someone I love close by . . . and, of course, a small dog enjoying it all, too. Q. What’s your fantasy profession? A. The one I have. I wouldn't choose another. Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be? A. I would love to be able to sing and to draw, to do carpentry and to fix a motor, but I have to be content with playing with words. Learn more about Marion Dane Bauer

Authors on the Web

Picayune Item, March 27, 2013
...recently authored Look! and Stable and illustrated The World’s Greatest Lion (Ralph Helfer) and The Longest Night (Marion Dane Bauer) among many others. — Grace Lin is the author and illustrator of picture books, early readers and middle grade...
Huffington Post, February 28, 2013
...Story of Rosa Parks by Faith Ringgold Grade 1+ My First Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr. , Written by Marion Dane Bauer and Illustrated by Jamie Smith Grade 1+ Cassie's Word Quilt by Faith Ringgold Grade 1+ Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up...
Tulsa World, February 4, 2013
...making up new "feet" words can also be fittingly fun. "Toes, Ears, & Nose! A Lift-the-Flap Book": by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Karen Katz. This board book survived my thieving dogs, who thought they found a new chew toy. That should tell you...
Examiner.com, January 16, 2013
...of honor for Martin Luther King, Jr. on January 21. Young children will participate in celebrations at school. Marion Dane Bauer's "Martin Luther King, Jr., " from Scholastic's...
Seattle Times, November 20, 2012
...an active alphabet book with a multicultural group of children running races and giving giggles. “Dinosaur Thunder” by Marion Dane Bauer and illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine (Scholastic, $16.99). For ages 3-6. Little Brannon is scared of the...
Bend Bulletin, October 5, 2012
...a couple of great spooky tales to get you in the mood for Halloween. This time, prolific author Marion Dane Bauer presents us with a tale of a young trick-or-treater who hazards a forest of bones in search of candy. The illustrations of the bone forest...
Edge Miami, September 17, 2012
...that depicted a LGBT family, and I have been teaching young children for over 10 years!" Noted authors Marion Dane Bauer (Newbery Award), Nancy Garden (Margaret A. Edwards Award), Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked), and Jacqueline Woodson (Newbery...
EHow.com, May 7, 2013
...George Washington" or "The Story of Abraham Lincoln" by Patricia A. Pingry, "My First Biography: Abraham Lincoln" by Marion Dane Bauer or "Presidents' Day" by Anne Rockwell. Presidential Portrait Theme Create a variety of activities around a presidential...
Picayune Item, March 27, 2013
...recently authored Look! and Stable and illustrated The World’s Greatest Lion (Ralph Helfer) and The Longest Night (Marion Dane Bauer) among many others. — Grace Lin is the author and illustrator of picture books, early readers and middle grade...
Huffington Post, February 28, 2013
...Story of Rosa Parks by Faith Ringgold Grade 1+ My First Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr. , Written by Marion Dane Bauer and Illustrated by Jamie Smith Grade 1+ Cassie's Word Quilt by Faith Ringgold Grade 1+ Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up...
PublishersWeekly.com, February 25, 2013
...out the season with Celebrating Arizona: Fifty States to Celebrate and Celebrating Virginia: Fifty States to Celebrate by Marion Dane Bauer, illus. by C.B. Canga, two new level 3 Green Light Readers starring Mr. Geo who shares fun facts about the titular...
Tulsa World, February 4, 2013
...making up new "feet" words can also be fittingly fun. "Toes, Ears, & Nose! A Lift-the-Flap Book": by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Karen Katz. This board book survived my thieving dogs, who thought they found a new chew toy. That should tell you...
Examiner.com, January 16, 2013
...of honor for Martin Luther King, Jr. on January 21. Young children will participate in celebrations at school. Marion Dane Bauer's "Martin Luther King, Jr., " from Scholastic's...
Seattle Times, November 20, 2012
...an active alphabet book with a multicultural group of children running races and giving giggles. “Dinosaur Thunder” by Marion Dane Bauer and illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine (Scholastic, $16.99). For ages 3-6. Little Brannon is scared of the...