Kate Messner

Kate Messner (born ) is an American children's author. She has written over seventy books, which have sold over five million copies in over a dozen languages. She primarily writes picture books, chapter books, and middle grade novels.

Life Messner was born in 1970 or 1971, and grew up in Medina, New York as the youngest of four children.

Messner graduated from Medina High School in 1988. She obtained a National Board Certification in 2006.

She lives on the New York side of Lake Champlain with her family. She has a -year-old son and a -year-old daughter. Her husband is part of a group that offers to help start up businesses in Vermont.

Career Messner started her writing career in 2009 with the middle grade novel The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z, which won an E. B. White Read Aloud Award in 2010. Over the course of her writing career, she has written over seventy books, which have sold over five million copies in over a dozen languages.

In 2011, Messner published the picture book Over and Under the Snow. The book won a Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Text, and was named a Notable Children's Book by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). It received seven sequels.

In 2016, she published a middle grade novelThe Seventh Wish, which was met with controversy for depicting opioid addiction. The novel was well received by critics. The ALSC named it on their annual list of Notable Children's Books, and it won the year's Green Earth Book Award.

Her 2021 picture book Dr. Fauci, a biography of Anthony Fauci, reached the New York Times Children's Picture Book Best Seller List on July 18, 2021.

She is the head a three-year-long multi-author project titled The Kids of Mrs. Z's Class, an eighteen-book series about the children of one elementary school class. Each author creates a character who would serve as the lead of their book and features as a secondary character in the rest of the books of the series. Messner wrote the first book, Emma McKenna, Full Out, which was released in 2024. She will also write the final book, which has not yet been published.

In 2025, she published The Trouble with Heroes, which she wrote while climbing all 46 Adirondack Mountains over the course of eight years.

In 2026, she published her first graphic novel, Camp Monster, with art by Falynn Koch, who also illustrated five books in Messner's History Smashers series. It is the first in a series.

Works Novels Standalone novels

Silver Jaguar Society Mysteries

Chapter books Marty McGuire

Ranger in Time

The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class

Wildlife Rescue

Picture books Standalone picture books

Over and Under

Easy readers Fergus and Zeke

Nonfiction Standalone nonfiction

Books for teachers

History Smashers

Tracking Animals

Graphic novels