Heidi E.Y. Stemple
MY LIFE IN BOOKS
I didn't become a writer
until I was 28 years old,
but I've been involved in books practically my entire life.
This is a page from Milkweed
Days
By my mother Jane
Yolen
I must be about 10 years old.
In Hannah Dreaming, a children's book
created to be a catalogue for a museum show
featuring doll house furniture,
I was twelve.
As a teenager,
I posed for artist Bob Marstal
who used me on this and two other covers
of young adult novels.
When I came home from college
in Florida,
I was lucky enough to pose for Ruth
Sanderson
as a fairy in Sleeping
Beauty.
She creates gorgeous illustrations by taking photographs
in full costume and then painting from those pictures.
(I'm the tiny orange fairy)
But perhaps my favorite
story
(and a true one at that)
is that I am the little girl in
the Caldecott winning
Owl
Moon
and I still love owls.
