Greetings! Thanks for visiting my website. Here’s a bit about me:

My first picture book, Purple Mountain Majesties, was a Junior Library Guild selection and a Scholastic Book Club selection.

Purple

I’ve published seven holiday picture books. This is my favorite cover!

20190424_094849 (1)

And I’ve got lots of manuscripts I hope to get published.

My novel Eva Heaven and the Summer Pie Blog, introduces a girl named Eva, her crazy bulldog Beetle, and Aunt Sky, a noted pie blogger. I’ve also written a novel about  a boy who fights to keep the frog from being removed from an historic carousel on a New Jersey boardwalk. You can see some of the wonderful carousel figures at the top of this page.

I love the bracelets and note a real Eva sent to encourage me as I dug into another revision of Eva Heaven:

Letter from Eva

I earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. I began my professional life as a children’s librarian after receiving an MSLS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My undergraduate days were spent at Duke University (Go Blue Devils!), where I majored in history and French literature.

Since I like history, I’ve written lots of stories set in the past. Christmas Dinner for Greta is based on the holiday meal served to the horses of Boston years ago.

Christmas Dinner for Greta

I enjoy doing research for picture book biographies. I’ve written about Jane Taylor, who wrote “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” Fanny Hayes and the first While House Egg Roll,” and James Naismith, who created basketball. My manuscript, “Randolph Caldecott, Forever in Motion,” won Honorable Mention for the 2018 Katherine Paterson Prize for Writing for Young Adults and Children.

I write contemporary picture books, too. I’ve got stories about moving into a big bed, a flower girl, trucks, the peace dove, and a lighthouse. A few years ago, I started to paint! You can read about my art by clicking here.

Lighthouse and Clouds

I live in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with my husband Cliff and my collections of bookmarks, buttons, and vintage Golden Books. Along with writing and painting, I act in community theater. I love the moment just before the play begins when the audience hushes. It reminds me of starting the first page of a story or lifting a paint brush to a fresh canvas.

I like to speak to kids and adults about writing or painting or both. I can be reached at BKYounger@gmail.com