Shakespeare wrote with a feather quill and ink, Emily Dickinson wrote with a fountain pen, Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote on a Yiddish typewriter. But what did such writers do when they weren't writing? What did Jane Austen eat for breakfast? What could make Mark Twain throw his shirts out the window? Why would Zora Neale Hurston punch a fellow elevator passenger? Lives of the Writers tells all that and more.

"The Newbery Honor-winning author of Hatchet and Dogsong shares surprising true stories about his relationship with animals, highlighting their compassion, intellect, intuition, and sense of adventure. Gary Paulsen is an adventurer who competed in two Iditarods, survived the Minnesota wilderness, and climbed the Bighorns. None of this would have been possible without his truest companion: his animals. Sled dogs rescued him in Alaska, a sickened poodle...

Having expanded their treehouse to an astonishing thirty-nine stories, Andy and Terry describe the invention of their "Once-Upon-a-Time machine," which they have designed to write and illustrate their stories for them.

Andy and Terry try to solve the mystery of: What happened to Mr. Big Nose? After all, it's hard to turn in your next book when your publisher has vanished.

In this story told mostly through letters, children's book author, I. B. Grumply, gets more than he bargained for when he rents a quiet place to write for the summer.

Highlights the life and career of Dr. Seuss, from his childhood to his success as a creator of children's books.

"Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and...

Presents a memoir by two siblings from the Gilbreth clan in which they look at the lives of their parents, Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth, discuss Frank and Lillian's careers as industrial engineers and work with scientific management, and share the adventures the couple encountered raising a family of twelve children.

The author relates incidents in his life and how they inspired parts of his books about the character, Brian Robeson.