Rebecca Stead | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rebecca Stead (1968-01-16)January 16, 1968 (age 57) New York City, US |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Period | 2007–present |
| Genre | Children's andyoung adult fiction,science fiction |
| Notable works | |
| Notable awards | Newbery Medal (2010) Guardian Prize (2013) |
| Spouse | Sean O'Brien |
| Children | 2 sons |
| Website | |
| rebeccasteadbooks | |
Rebecca Stead (born January 16, 1968) is an American writer of fiction for children and teens. She won the AmericanNewbery Medal in 2010, the oldest award inchildren's literature, for her second novelWhen You Reach Me.[1][2][3]
She won theGuardian Children's Fiction Prize in 2013 recognizingLiar & Spy as the year's best British children's book by a writer who has not previously won it.[4]
Born and raised inNew York City, Stead enjoyed her elementary school years and fondly remembers reading books in a windowsill or under a table.[5]
She attendedVassar College and received her bachelors degree in 1989.[6]
Rebecca Stead is married to attorney Sean O'Brien and has two sons.[2] She and her family live on theUpper West Side ofManhattan.[7]
Rebecca Stead enjoyed writing as a child but later felt that it was "impractical" and became a lawyer instead. After years as apublic defender she returned to writing after the birth of her two children.[5] She credits her son with inspiring her to write a children's novel, but not in the way one would expect. For years she had collected story ideas and short stories on a laptop, which the child one day pushed off a table, destroying what she considered her serious writing. As a way to lighten her mood she began again with something light-hearted[1][5] — her debut novelFirst Light, which was published in 2007 by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint ofRandom House.
In review of her second book,When You Reach Me (2009),Publishers Weekly applaude Stead's ability to "make every detail count" as she creates a plausible conclusion with these divergent and improbable plot lines.[8]The New York Times Book Review called it a "taut novel, every word, every sentence, has meaning and substance."[9]
Stead was awarded the 2010Newbery Medal by theAssociation for Library Service to Children forWhen You Reach Me. According to the chair, "Every scene, every nuance, every word is vital both to character development and the progression of the mystery that really is going to engage readers and satisfy them."[10]
In 2012,When You Reach Me was ranked number 11 among all-time best children's novels in a survey published bySchool Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U.S. audience. It was the only 21st-century work among the top 28.[11]
Stead won the 2013Guardian Children's Fiction Prize forLiar & Spy, which was published in the UK byAndersen Press. Stead became the first winning writer from the U.S.[4]– or from anywhere outside theBritish Commonwealth. Prior to 2012, eligibility had been extended to all books published or co-published in the U.K. (by writers who have not yet won the award).
Goodbye Stranger was published by Wendy Lamb in August 2015. In a starred review (its third for Stead's novels),Kirkus Reviews observed that "the protagonists try on their new and changing lives with a mixture of caution and recklessness. Stead adroitly conveys the way things get complicated so quickly and so completely for even fairly ordinary children at the edge of growing up ... She captures the stomach-churning moments of a misstep or an unplanned betrayal and reworks these events with grace, humor, and polish into possibilities for kindness and redemption."[12]
