Creech, Sharon 1945–

(Sharon Rigg)

Personal

Born July 29, 1945, in South Euclid, OH; daughter of Ann and Arvel Creech; married (divorced); married Lyle D. Rigg (a school headmaster), 1982; children: Rob, Karin. Education: Hiram College, B.A.; George Mason University, M.A.

Addresses

Home—The Pennington School, 112 W. Delaware Ave., Pennington, NJ 08534. Agent—Amy Berkower, Writers House, 21 W. 26th St., New York, NY 10010.

Career

Affiliated with Federal Theater Project Archives, Fairfax, VA; Congressional Quarterly, Washington, DC, editorial assistant; The American School in Switzerland (TASIS), Surrey, England, teacher of American and British literature in England American School, 1979–82, 1984–94, teacher of American and British literature in Lugano, Switzerland, 1983–85.

Awards, Honors

Billee Murray Denny Poetry Award, Lincoln College (IL), 1988, for "Cleansing"; Best Books designation, School Library Journal, 1994, Notable Children's Book designation, American Library Association (ALA), Children's Book Award (England), U.K. Reading Association Award, and Newbery Medal, ALA, all 1995, W.H. Smith Award, 1996, and Young Readers Award, Virginia State Reading Association, Heartland Award, Sequoia Award, and Literaturhaus award (Austria), all 1997, all for Walk Two Moons; Whitbread Award shortlist, 1997, for Chasing Redbird; Christopher Award, 2000, and Newbery Honor Book designation, 2001, both for The Wanderer; Christopher Award, 2002, for "Love That Dog"; Carnegie Medal, 2003, and Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award, second place, 2005, both for Ruby Holler; Carnegie Medal nomination, 2005, for Heartbeat.

Writings

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Absolutely Normal Chaos, Macmillan (London, England), 1990, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1995.

Walk Two Moons, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1994.

Pleasing the Ghost, illustrated by Stacey Schuett, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1996, published as The Ghost of Uncle Arvie, illustrated by Simon Cooper, Macmillan (London, England), 1996.

Chasing Redbird, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1997.

Bloomability, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1998.

The Wanderer, illustrated by David Diaz, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2000.

"Love That Dog": Learning about Poetry from Miss Stretchberry, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

Ruby Holler, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Heartbeat, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2004.

Replay, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2005.

PICTURE BOOKS

Fishing in the Air, illustrated by Chris Raschka, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2000.

A Fine, Fine School, illustrated by Harry Bliss, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Who's That Baby?: New-Baby Songs, illustrated by David Diaz, Joanna Cotler Books (New York, NY), 2005.

OTHER

(Under name Sharon Rigg) The Recital (novel), Pan-Macmillan (London, England), 1990.

(Under name Sharon Rigg) Nickel Malley, Pan-Macmillan (London, England), 1991.

The Center of the Universe: Waiting for the Girl (play), produced in New York, NY, 1992.

Adaptations

Walk Two Moons was adapted for the stage by Julia Jordan in 2005; several of Creech's titles have been recorded as audiobooks.

Sidelights

Sharon Creech's second novel for young adults, Walk Two Moons, brought its author instant celebrity in the United States when it won the 1995 Newbery Honor Medal. Interestingly, her first novel for teens, Absolutely Normal Chaos, had not yet been published in America. The reason? The Ohio-born author had been living in England for several years, and made her publishing debut there. Creech's name is no longer unknown, however, and more recent novels such as Heartbeat and Replay, as well as picture books such as Granny Torrelli Makes Soup and Who's That Baby?: New-Baby Songs have earned her a loyal readership.

Creech was born and raised in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, part of "a big, noisy family … with hordes of relatives telling stories around the kitchen table," as she explained in the Seventh Book of Junior Authors & Illustrators. "I learned to exaggerate and embellish, because if you didn't, your story was drowned out by someone else's more exciting one." She was an enthusiastic writer throughout grade school and high school, and she was often captivated by the "instruments of writing: paper, pens, pencils, books. I hoarded them." She was an equally enthusiastic reader. "I don't remember the titles of books I read as a child, but I do remember the experience of reading—of drifting into the pages and living in someone else's world." "I loved myths—American Indian myths, Greek myths, and the King Arthur legends," she concluded, "and I remember the lightning jolt of exhilaration when I read Ivanhoe as a teenager."

After receiving her bachelor's degree from Hiram College, Creech went on to George Mason University in Washington, DC for her master's degree. She then worked at the Federal Theater Project Archives and was an editorial assistant at the Congressional Quarterly. She eventually married, had two children, and then got divorced. In 1979, Creech moved to Thorpe, England, and got a job as an English teacher at The American School in Switzerland (TASIS)'s English campus. Three years later she married fellow school staffer Lyle D. Rigg. Rigg had been hired as assistant headmaster—the British equivalent of a school principal—and soon after he and Creech were married, they transferred to the school's Swiss campus. In 1984, Rigg returned to Thorpe as headmaster of the English branch, where he and Creech stayed until they returned to the United

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States in 1994. "As a teacher of American and British literature to American and international teenagers," Rigg recalled in a Horn Book article, "Sharon … shared her love both of literature and of writing. She'd open up Chaucer's world in The Canterbury Tales and then head off to Canterbury with her students so that they could make the pilgrimage themselves. She'd offer Hamlet, and then off they would all go to Stratford-upon-Avon."

For many years Creech devoted her time almost exclusively to her teaching and her family. "In 1980, when my children and I had been in England for nine months," she recalled in Horn Book, "my father had a stroke. Although he lived for six more years, the stroke left him paralyzed and unable to speak…. Think of all those words locked up for six years." Creech started her first novel a month after her father's death in 1986, "and when I finished it," she continued, "I wrote another, and another, and another. The words rushed out."

Absolutely Normal Chaos, Creech's first book for young readers, deals with a variety of themes, some specific to adolescence, such as first love, growing up, and school-work, and others more universal, such as dealing with relatives and friends, learning compassion, and understanding. The novel is the fictional journal of one summer in the life of thirteen-year-old Mary Lou Finney of Easton, Ohio, and as it starts Mary Lou is begging her English teacher not to read the writing that follows. The girl's summer, it becomes apparent, is more bizarre than usual for a teen. "Her life is disrupted in more ways than one by the arrival of a gangling, uncommunicative cousin, Carl Ray, from West Virginia, by his curious relationship with Charlie Furtz, the genial neighbour from across the road, who subsequently dies of a heart attack, and by her own budding romance," explained Joan Zahnleiter in Magpies. These circumstances force Mary Lou to confront issues in her own life and to come to terms with her family and issues such as death and illegitimacy.

"Mary Lou is a typical teen whose acquaintance with the sadder parts of life is cushioned by a warm and energetic family," stated Cindy Darling Codell in her School Library Journal review. The narrator's "entertaining musings on Homer, Shakespeare, and Robert Frost are drawn in nifty parallels to what is happening in her own life," Codell continued. Nancy Vasilakis wrote in Horn Book that Mary Lou "grows in a number of important ways throughout the summer, and the metaphors she now recognizes in the Odyssey could, she realizes, very well apply to her own life."

Themes of growth and self-actualization also appear in Walk Two Moons. In this story, thirteen-year-old Salamanca "Sal" Tree Hiddle relates the plight of her friend Phoebe, whose mother has left home. What makes Phoebe's story particularly relevant to Sal is the fact that Sal's mother Sugar also left home and never returned. "Sal finds that recounting Phoebe's story helps her understand the desertion of her own mother," explained Deborah Stevenson in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. "Creech skillfully keeps these layers separate but makes their interrelationship clear, and the plot moves along amid all this contemplation with the aid of a mysterious noteleaver, a local 'lunatic,' an eccentric English teacher, and Sal's budding romance."

Some of the elements of Walk Two Moons were drawn from Creech's own experiences. She explained that Walk Two Moons was inspired by a message she once found in a fortune cookie: "Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins." The framework of the story was based on a trip Creech made to Lewiston, Idaho with her family at age twelve. Sal's Native-American ancestry was also inspired by the author's childhood experiences. "I inhaled Indian myths, and among my favorites were those which involved stories of reincarnation," she commented in her Newbery acceptance speech. "How magnificent and mysterious to be Estsanatlehi, 'the woman who never dies. She grows from baby to mother to old woman and then turns into a baby again, and on and on she goes, living a thousand, thousand lives.' I wanted to be that Navajo woman."

Sal's full name, Salamanca Tree, also evokes Creech's fondness for the outdoors. "I think I spent half my childhood up a tree," she recalled in Horn Book. "You could climb and climb, and you could reach a place where there was only you and the tree and the birds and the sky. And maybe the appeal of trees also lay in the sense that they live 'a thousand, thousand lives,' appearing to die each autumn." The Native-American references are "the best things about this book," asserted New York Times Book Review contributor Hazel Rochman, "casual, contemporary and mythic, not an exotic thing apart. Sal is only a small part Indian, and she knows her parents gave her what they thought was the tribe's name but got it wrong. Still, the heritage is a part of her identity. She loves the Indian stories her mother told her, and they get mixed in with Genesis and Pandora's box and Longfellow and with family stories and, above all, with a celebration of the sweeping natural world and our connectedness with it." "For once in a children's book," Rochman concluded, "Indians are people, not reverential figures in a museum diorama. Sal's Indian heritage is a natural part of her finding herself in America."

One of the most dramatic themes common to both Absolutely Normal Chaos and Walk Two Moons is that of death and the feelings of grief and loss that follow. These themes are also linked to Creech's life. "When I read Salamanca's story now, with some distance," the author revealed in Horn Book, "I hear such longing in her voice—for her mother, for her father, for the land—and I know that her longing is also my longing … for my children, my larger family, and for my own country."

Pleasing the Ghost, while directed toward a somewhat younger audience, also deals with death and loss, but with a lighter touch. Nine-year-old Dennis is visited in his bedroom by a parade of ghosts, although he never encounters the ghost of his late father. Instead, the boy meets up with his late Uncle Arvie, who ask for the boy help in assisting his widow, Dennis's Aunt Julia, in finding the gifts and money Arvie has left for her. Mystery blends with comedy in Creech's tale as Dennis must first decipher his late uncle's messages, jumbled due to the speech impairment caused by a stroke Arvie suffered before his death. "The book has several mythical elements: three wishes, magic, ghosts, a lonely young boy whose father has died, a quest and a satisfactory conclusion," asserted School Librarian contributor Ann Jenkin. A Publishers Weekly reviewer observed that "Arvie's earnest affection for Julia and Dennis makes him a role model as well as a clown, and Creech's attention to nuances of feeling grounds this light tale in emotional truth." Booklist reviewer Michael Cart called Pleasing the Ghost an "engaging story that manages to deal lightheartedly with emotional loss by offering [Creech's] readers the enduring promise of hope."

Creech returns to the hills of Kentucky for Chasing Redbird, another well-received story of grief, loss, and discovery. Thirteen-year-old Zinnia Taylor, the third of seven siblings, enjoys escaping to the "Quiet Zone" of her neighboring aunt and uncle's home. The death of Zinny's aunt, however, causes her despondent uncle to engage in increasingly eccentric behavior as he succumbs to unrelenting grief, leaving Zinny to find solace elsewhere. The teenager soon becomes obsessed with her discovery of a long, winding trail near her home—a trail once used by trappers and Indians. As Zinny works to clear the trail, occasionally interrupted by the attentions of an older boy, she unearths markers and other indications of her ancestors' presence in the region. "Creech has written a striking novel, notable for its emotional honesty," declared Ethel L. Heins in a Horn Book review of Chasing Redbird. "In her Newbery Medal acceptance speech," Heins added, "the author spoke of her predilection for mystery and for metaphorical journeys; she has worked both into the novel and, in addition, once again bridges the gap between the generations and binds them together." A Kirkus Reviews commentator, who also had high praise for the book, maintained that "Creech crams her novel full of wonderful characters, proficient dialogue, bracing descriptions, and a merry use of language." A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Chasing Redbird "Creech's best yet," while Deborah Stevenson concluded in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books that the novelist "again demonstrates her expertise at evoking physical and emotional landscapes and the connections between the two."

Dinnie Doone has lived in thirteen states in twelve years, but nothing prepares her to be whisked away to the American School in Lugano, Switzerland, in Creech's novel Bloomability. Dinnie's Uncle Max is the headmaster at the school, and the girl now finds herself learning to ski and speak Italian as she gradually overcomes feelings of being a stranger. Recognizing the opportunity that the move affords her—it is a year of "bloomabilities"—Dinnie welcomes the diversity and new ideas she had previously protected herself from while moving from place to place. Nancy Bond, writing in Horn Book, praised Bloomability, writing that "Creech surrounds [Dinnie] with a lively, sympathetic, often amusing cast of adult and adolescent characters, and Dinnie herself is an appealing narrator." It is "a story to stimulate both head and heart," commented John Peters in Booklist.

The title of Creech's award-winning novel The Wanderer is also the name of a sailboat on which thirteen-year-old Sophie sets sail with her three uncles and two cousins. The story of their journey from Connecticut to England is told through cousins Sophie and Cody's journal entries. When they face a dangerous storm, the

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group must pull together in order to keep the boat afloat. Sophie is excited about sailing across the ocean and anxious to visit her grandfather, who has returned to his childhood home in England. During the voyage, she regales her cousins and uncles with the many stories her grandfather told her when she was young, despite the fact that she has never met the man. The story, particularly the ocean voyage, is a metaphor for self-discovery. In Cody's journal entries, readers learn that Sophie's parents are dead and she lives with an adoptive mother; meanwhile, the girl's journey helps her deal with the painful secrets of her past. "Presented directly," wrote Carolyn Phelan in Booklist, "the weight and force of such revelations might have swamped the novel, but here, handled obliquely, they simply lift and carry the whole story." Kliatt contributor Paula Rohrlick considered Creech's novel "an exciting and touching story of adventure on the high seas and of emotional discoveries."

In "Love That Dog": Learning about Poetry from Miss Stretchberry Creech tells the story of Jack, whose teacher introduces her students to poetry through the works of Robert Frost, William Blake, and other poets. Jack resists his teacher's attempts to make the students write their own poetry, however, and his attempts at poetry form the story, told through his writing journal. Many of his early poems take the form of complaints over having to write them, sometimes in the style of William Carlos Williams. "I don't want to / because boys / don't write poetry. // Girls do," he writes. Eventually, Jack comes to understand the need for poetry and the talent it takes to write it. In his final poem to appear in the book, he discusses the fate of his beloved dog, Sky. Jack eventually becomes a fan of poetry and invites his favorite poet, Walter Dean Myers, to visit his school.

"Love That Dog" garnered much praise from critics and received a Christopher award in 2001. "Creech has achieved more than one impressive feat here," wrote Meg Wolitzer in the New York Times Book Review. "Not only has she shown young readers what a poem can do, she's also shown them what a novel can do." Hazel Rochman wrote in Booklist that "the story shows how poetry inspires reading and writing with everyday words that make personal music." The real poems Miss Stretchberry uses in her lessons, including "Love That Boy" by Walter Dean Myers, are printed at the back of the book, further blurring the line between fact and fiction. "By exposing Jack and readers to the range of poems that moves Jack," wrote a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, "Creech conveys a life truth: pain and joy exist side by side."

Creech was nervous about including real-life author Walter Dean Myers as a pivotal character in her book, but his effect on Jack is a profound part of the story's plot. She told a School Library Journal interviewer that she almost gave up on the manuscript, but her editor persuaded her to send it to Myers. "I think he was very, very shy about being the hero in this book," Creech explained. "And yet he could easily see why his presence was needed in that book…. He gave his blessing." Creech also explained to the School Library Journal interviewer where the idea for the book came from. "One day, when I was looking at [Myers's poem 'Love That Boy,'] … I was thinking about that boy in the poem who is so loved. And I started to wonder, what would that boy love? Maybe he would love a pet, maybe a dog, maybe some teacher, and almost instantly … I saw this boy in my mind who was Jack…. And the story just came out very fast, very fluid."

In the novel Ruby Holler, orphaned twins Dallas, a boy, and Florida, a girl, take a three-month leave from the orphanage where they live in order to accompany Sairy and Tiller Morey, an older couple from Ruby Holler, on their separate vacations. Florida and Tiller are scheduled to go canoeing, and Dallas and Sairy are going birdwatching. Florida and Dallas prove to be trouble wherever they go, but as they prepare for their respective journeys in the rural confines of Ruby Holler, they slowly learn to respect the Moreys and learn more about themselves. A writer for Kirkus Reviews noted that "charm and humor is encapsulated in this romp with its melodramatic elements of treasure and orphans." Creech's story "celebrates the healing effects of love and compassion," wrote a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, the critic adding that the novel "evokes a feeling as welcoming as fresh-baked bread." Booklist contributor Carolyn Phelan considered the book "a stylized yet solid story," and Kliatt reviewer Paula Rohrlick noted that "younger YAs … will appreciate the happy ending of this sweet, deliberately rather old-fashioned tale." Horn Book critic Joanna Rudge Long complimented Creech's use of "brief chapters, swift action,… generous doses of humor, engagingly quirky characters, and a lively, kid-friendly voice." With Ruby Holler, Creech became the first American to win the United Kingdom's top children's prize, the Carnegie Medal.

Twelve-year-old Annie and Annie's friend Max love running together in Heartbeat. However, Annie soon begins noticing some changes in Max: he now runs to win, instead of just for the joy of it. As tension grows between the two due to Max's insistence that Annie join his track team, Annie's grandfather, a former champion runner and Annie's inspiration, becomes ill and

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develops dementia. The story is told in verse from Annie's point of view, and reveals the girl's feelings of joy about her mother's pregnancy, and her worries about both her grandfather and her friend Max. "This is vintage Creech, and its richness lies in its sheer simplicity," stated Luann Toth in School Library Journal. Annie's "pondering is realistic for a bright, sensitive twelve-year-old," commented Susan Dove Lempke in Horn Book, while a Publishers Weekly reviewer deemed Heartbeat "a wholly satisfying emotional journey."

In Replay, Leonardo feels invisible amid his siblings, although he has dreams of achieving great things. When he does not get the hoped-for role in a school play, he is nonetheless thrilled about being cast in the production, and wants to share that excitement with his sometimes unappreciative family. When Leo discovers a journal written by his father when the man was about Leo's age, the boy realizes that he is not the only one in the family with big dreams. The story is told in a variety of formats, including journal entries and playscript dialogue. "In this warm, funny, philosophical novel, Creech cleverly juxtaposes life and stage life," noted a Kirkus Reviews contributor. "Though the subjects are serious, they are played out with humor," commented Susan Dove Lempke in Horn Book, and Kliatt reviewer Paula Rohrlick dubbed the novel "another tour-de-force" from Creech. Hazel Rochman, writing in Booklist, called the novel "both uproarious and tender," and praised Creech's use of a "pitch-perfect dialogue that will sweep readers right to the end of the story." A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that Replay is "written with the kind of warmth, understanding, and economical prose that has characterized Creech's previous novels."

Though best known for her novels for middle-graders and young adults, Creech is also the author of several picture books, including A Fine, Fine School, Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, and Who's That Baby? The enthusiastic educator Mr. Keene (inspired by Creech's husband) decides to keep school open on Saturdays in A Fine, Fine School. Not surprisingly, his plan does not please the students, especially Tillie. Tillie's time for climbing trees and playing with her dog is even more seriously curtailed when the principal takes his radical plan further, and requires school attendance on Sundays, holidays, and even during the summer. When Tillie confronts Mr. Keene and persuasively argues that learning takes place outside the classroom as well, he comes to understand that having time to teach a pet dog some new tricks is as valuable as time in the classroom. "This book has it all," wrote Ilene Cooper in Booklist: "a fine, fresh idea [and] a witty text that's fun to read aloud."

Granny Torrelli Makes Soup introduces friends Rosie and Bailey. Bailey, the boy who lives next door to Rosie, is blind, and the two have been friends for a very long time. But the friendship is threatened when Rosie unwittingly usurps the one thing that makes Bailey feel special: reading Braille. Fortunately, Granny invites Bailey over to help make soup, and the three of them are able to repair the friendship in Granny's kitchen. "Rosie's present-tense voice is fresh and young, with an ingenuous turn of phrase," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. School Library Journal critic Maria B. Salvadore noted that Creech's "authentic voice gradually reveals what has happened and the accompanying emotions ranging from anger and angst to happiness and contentment."

The poems in Who's That Baby? are geared toward the adults who read them aloud as much as to their young audience. Inspired by the birth of Creech's granddaughter, the collection includes poem-songs about babies doing baby things, or looking like burritos wrapped up in their quilts. "The often-rhythmic, short-lined poem-songs are perfect for reading aloud to baby burritos," wrote Karin Snelson in Booklist. All of the poems are told in the first person, from the perspective of the baby.

Despite her successful career writing for younger readers, Creech never intended to be a children's writer; in fact, her first novel, Absolutely Normal Chaos, was written with adults as the intended audience. After her publishers decided to market it for young adults, the writer did some research in order to find out how children's books are made, and she has discovered that she has a knack for writing for a young audience. As Creech joked to Time interviewer Andrea Sachs: "If you came up and tapped me on the shoulder when I was in one of my writing trances, I suppose I would maybe talk like a seventh grader."

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults, Volumes 9, 11, 12, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 2001.

Children's Literature Review, Volume 42, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1997.

St. James Guide to Young-Adult Writers, 2nd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999, pp. 195-197.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 1994, p. 590; September 1, 1996, p. 125; September 15, 1998, John Peters, review of Bloomability, p. 226; April 1, 2000, Carolyn Phelan, review of The Wanderer, p. 1456; August, 2001, Ilene Cooper, review of A Fine, Fine School, p. 2116, and Hazel Rochman, review of "Love That Dog": Learning about Poetry from Miss Stretchberry, p. 2118; March 15, 2002, review of "Love That Dog," p. 1234; April 1, 2002, Carolyn Phelan, review of Ruby Holler, p. 1328; February 1, 2004, Jennifer Mattson, review of Heartbeat, p. 976; August, 2005, Karin Snelson, review of Who's That Baby?: New-Baby Songs, p. 2032; September 1, 2005, Hazel Rochman, review of Replay, p. 124.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 15, 1994, p. 590; January, 1995, p. 162; November, 1995, p. 87; March, 1997, p. 243; March, 2004, Timnah Card, review of Heartbeat, p. 267.

Carousel, summer, 1997, p. 25.

Detroit Free Press, February 7, 1995, pp. 1C, 3C.

Fiction, May-June, 1996, pp. 34-35.

Five Owls, fall, 2004, Susie Wilde, review of Granny Tor-relli Makes Soup, p. 22.

Horn Book, July-August, 1995, pp. 418-425, 426-429; March-April, 1996, pp. 204-205; May-June, 1997, pp. 316-317; September-October, 1998, Nancy Bond, review of Bloomability, p. 605; November-December, 2001, Betty Carter, review of "Love That Dog," p. 743; May-June, 2002, Joanna Rudge Long, review of Ruby Holler, p. 327; November-December, 2003, Betty Carter, review of Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, p. 741; May-June, 2004, Susan Dove Lempke, review of Heartbeat, p. 326; November-December, 2005, Susan Dove Lempke, review of Replay, p. 714.

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, May, 2002, Jennifer Anstiss, review of "Love That Dog," p. 794.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1994, p. 832; February 1, 1997, p. 220; March 15, 2002, review of Ruby Holler, p. 408; July 1, 2003, review of Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, p. 908; August 15, 2005, review of Who's That Baby?, p. 911.

Kliatt, May, 2002, Paula Rohrlick, review of Ruby Holler, p. 6, and review of The Wanderer, p. 18; September, 2004, Mary Purucker, review of Heartbeat, p. 61; March, 2005, Claire Rosser, review of Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, p. 18; September, 2005, Paula Rohrlick, review of Replay, p. 7.

Magpies, September, 1991, p. 32.

New York Times Book Review, May 21, 1995, pp. 24, 34; October 21, 2001, Meg Wolitzer, review of "Love That Dog," p. 30.

Publishers Weekly, February 13, 1995, p. 16; March 20, 1995, pp. 24-25; July 22, 1996, p. 242; January 20, 1997, p. 403; July 20, 1998, review of Bloomability, p. 220; June 18, 2001, review of "Love That Dog," p. 82; July 16, 2001, Jason Britton, "Everyday Journeys" (interview), p. 153; July 23, 2001, review of A Fine, Fine School, p. 75; March 4, 2002, review of Ruby Holler, p. 80; April 19, 2004, Claire Kirch, "A New Moon for Sharon Creech," p. 26; May 10, 2004, review of Heartbeat, p. 19; January 10, 2005, review of Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, p. 58; September 5, 2005, review of Replay, p. 63.

Reading Teacher, February, 1996, pp. 380-382.

School Librarian, February, 1997, p. 23.

School Library Journal, November, 1995, p. 119; August, 2001, Grace Oliff, review of A Fine, Fine School, p. 144, Lee Bock, review of "Love That Dog," p. 177; September, 2001, interview with Creech, p. 21; August, 2003, "Sharon Creech Wins Carnegie Medal," p. 20, and Maria B. Salvadore, review of Granny Tor-relli Makes Soup, p. 158; October, 2003, review of Ruby Holler, p. S53; February, 2004, Luann Toth, review of Heartbeat, p. 142; April, 2004, review of Heartbeat, p. S48; November, 2004, Alison Follos, review of "Love That Dog," p. 65; February, 2005, Joyce Adams Burner, review of Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, p. 58; September, 2005, Maria B. Salvadore, review of Replay, p. 203; October, 2005, review of Replay, p. S64.

Teaching PreK-8, May, 1996, pp. 48-49.

Time, August 27, 2001, Andrea Sachs, "A Writer Who's Thirteen at Heart," p. F17.

Top of the News, spring, 1995, pp. 313-314.

Voice of Youth Advocates, February, 1995, pp. 337-338; June, 1996, p. 94.

ONLINE

Sharon Creech Web site, http://www.sharoncreech.com/index.html (October 2, 2006).