Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (born January 4, 1933) is an American writer best known for children's and young adult fiction. Naylor is best known for her children's-novel quartet Shiloh (a 1992 Newbery Medal winner) and for her "Alice" book series, one of the most frequently challenged books of the early 21st century.

Early life Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was born in Anderson, Indiana. She grew up during the Great Depression with her older sister Norma and younger brother John. She has said that she never felt poor, as her parents had a book collection and read stories aloud to her and her siblings until adolescence. Her favorite book as a child was Huckleberry Finn. She began writing her own stories when she was in elementary school. When she was 16 years old, a Sunday school teacher asked her to write a story for the church magazine. She wrote a baseball story named "Mike's Hero" and was paid $4.67 for it. Since then, Naylor has written an average of two books a year, many receiving special recognition by the American Library Association and the International Reading Association, and have also been selections for the Junior Literary Guild. In 1999, Shiloh was selected as a recommended novel for children ages nine to twelve in the Read Across America initiative. A few years later, Naylor went on to write two sequels to the book: Shiloh Season and Saving Shiloh, published in 1996 and 1997, respectively. In 2000, the Shiloh trilogy placed at number seven on the National Education Association's Children's Top 100 book list. In an interview, Naylor said she was delighted that children had given her work such a high ranking. #tag:ref|The six literary works ranked before Shiloh were the Goosebumps series, Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, the Arthur series and Charlotte's Web. They have two sons, Jeffrey and Michael, and four grandchildren: Sophia (who is herself a writer, comedian, and playwright), Tressa, Garrett and Beckett. So far, she has written over 130 books, and about 2000 articles. Naylor says that she will write "as long as she can hold a pencil."

Works

Collections Grasshoppers in the Soup (1965) The Galloping Goat and Other Stories (1965) Knee Deep in Ice Cream (1967) Dark Side of the Moon (1969) The Private I, and Other Stories (1969) Ships in the Night (1970) Never Born a Hero (1982) A Triangle Has Four Sides (1984) Alice series The Agony of Alice (1985) Alice in Rapture, Sort of (1989) Reluctantly Alice (1991) All but Alice (1992) Alice in April (1993) Alice in-Between (1994) Alice the Brave (1995) Alice in Lace (1996) Outrageously Alice (1997) Achingly Alice (1998) Alice on the Outside (1999) The Grooming of Alice (2000) Alice Alone (2001) Simply Alice (2002) Starting With Alice (2002) (prequel) Alice in Blunderland (2003) (prequel) Patiently Alice (2003) Including Alice (2004) Lovingly Alice (2004) (prequel) Alice on Her Way (2005) Alice in the Know (2006) Dangerously Alice (2007) Almost Alice (2008) Intensely Alice (2009) Alice in Charge (2010) Incredibly Alice (2011) Alice on Board (2012) Now I'll Tell You Everything (2013) Shiloh series Shiloh (1991) Shiloh Season (1996) Saving Shiloh (1997) A Shiloh Christmas (2015) KittyCat Pack series The Grand Escape by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and Alan Daniel (1993) The Healing of Texas Jake by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and Alan Daniel (1997) Carlotta's Kittens by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and Alan Daniel (2000) Polo's Mother by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and Alan Daniel (2005) Hatfords and Malloys series The Boys Start the War (1992) The Girls Get Even (1993) Boys Against Girls (1994) The Girls' Revenge (1998) A Traitor Among the Boys (1999) A Spy Among the Girls (2000) The Boys Return (2001) The Girls Take Over (2002) Boys in Control (2003) Girls Rule! (2004) Boys Rock! (2005) Who Won the War? (2006) The Witch Saga series Witch's Sister (1975) Witch Water (1977) The Witch Herself (1978) The Witch's Eye (1990) Witch Weed (1991) The Witch Returns (1992) Bessledorf Mysteries The Mad Gasser of Bessledorf Street (1983) The Bodies in the Bessledorf Hotel (1986) Bernie Magruder & the Haunted Hotel (1990) Bernie and the Bessledorf Ghost (1993) Bernie Magruder & the Drive-Thru Funeral Parlor (1993) Bernie Magruder and the Bus Station Blow-Up (1996) Bernie Magruder and the Parachute Peril (1999) Bernie Magruder and the Pirate's Treasure (1999) Bernie Magruder and the Case of the Big Stink (2001) Bernie Magruder & the Bats in the Belfry (2003) York Trilogy Shadows on the Wall (1980) Faces in the Water (1981) Footprints at the Window (1981) Picture books A New Year's Surprise: Iran (1967) illustrated by Jack Endewelt Meet Murdock (1969) How Lazy Can You Get? (1979) All Because I'm Older (1981) The Boy with the Helium Head (1982) Old Sadie and the Christmas Bear (1984) The Baby, the Bed, and the Rose (1987) Keeping a Christmas Secret (1989) King of the Playground (1991) Ducks Disappearing (1996) I Can't Take You Anywhere! (1997) Sweet Strawberries (1999) Roxie and the Hooligans (2006) Cuckoo Feathers (2006) Emily's Fortune (2010) Emily and Jackson: Hiding Out (2012) Roxie and the Hooligans at Buzzard's Roost (2018) The Galloping Goat (1961) What the Gulls Were Singing (1967) To Walk the Sky Path (1973) Crazy Love: An Autobiographical Account of Marriage and Madness (1977) Eddie, Incorporated (1980) Night Cry (1984) The Keeper (1986) Beetles, Lightly Toasted (1987) Walker's Crossing (1987) The Year of the Gopher (1987) The Fear Place (1994) Being Danny's Dog (1995) Ice (1995) Danny's Desert Rats (1998) Sang Spell (1998) Jade Green: A Ghost Story (1999) How I Came to Be a Writer (2001) Faith, Hope, and Ivy June (2009) Going Where It's Dark (2016)