Virginia Euwer Wolff

Virginia Euwer Wolff (born August 25, 1937) is an American author of children's literature. Her award-winning series Make Lemonade features a 14-year-old girl named LaVaughn, who babysits for the children of a 17-year-old single mother. There are three books. The second, True Believer, won the 2001 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. The second and third, This Full House (2009), garnered Kirkus Reviews starred reviews. She was the recipient of the 2011 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, honoring her entire body of work.

Biography

Virginia Euwer Wolff was born in Portland, Oregon in 1937. She grew up in a log house with no electricity, on an apple and pear orchard. In 1945, she began violin lessons, which encouraged her love of music. She attended the girls' school St. Helen's Hall (now Oregon Episcopal School) and Smith College. She married Arthur Richard Wolff in 1959. They divorced in 1976.

In 2003, St. Helen's Hall honored Wolff with a Distinguished Alumna Award. She has lived in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C., but now reads, writes, and plays chamber music in Oregon.

She is currently writing an untitled fiction book, covering themes such as war, travel and peace. The characters are written to be brave, foolish and goofy. They also "Do not know what a Kardashian is".

Books

This Full House First ed. New York: HarperCollins Children's Books 2009. — concluding the Lemonade trilogy Kirkus Review (starred) 02/01/2009 True Believer First ed. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2001. — sequel to Make Lemonade Kirkus Review (starred) 02/01/2001 Award: 2001 National Book Award, Young People's Literature (U.S.) Bat 6 Henry Holt and Co., 1998 Kirkus Review 05/01/1998 Oregon Reads 2009 Selection Make Lemonade. First ed., Henry Holt and Co., 1993 (and many other editions) Kirkus Review 05/01/1993 Citation: American Library Association Notable Children's Book

Award: Booklist Top of the List winner The Mozart Season. First ed. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1991. Kirkus Review 05/15/1991 Award: 2011 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association as the best English-language children's book that did not a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. That is named for the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity.