Andrew Clements
| Andrew Elburn Clements | |
|---|---|
Clements at a Scholastic book fair in 2008
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| Born |
May 29, 1949 Camden, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer, editor, educator |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Children's literature |
| Website | |
| andrewclements |
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Andrew Clements (born May 29, 1949) is an American writer of many children's books. His debut novel Frindle won annual book awards determined by the vote of U.S. schoolchildren in about twenty different U.S. states. In June 2015 it was named the Phoenix Award winner for 2016 as the best book that did not win a major award when it was published in 1996.
Clements grew up in Camden, New Jersey and Springfield, Illinois, US. As a child, he enjoyed summers at a lakeside cabin in Maine where he spent his days swimming, hiking, water skiing, and his evenings reading books. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Northwestern University and a Masters of Arts in Elementary Education from National Louis University, he worked as a teacher sharing his love of reading with elementary, middle, and high school students. (During his senior year at Springfield High School his English teacher handed back a poem he’d written. Two things were amazing about that paper. First, he’d gotten an A—a rare event in this teacher’s class. And she’d also written in large, scrawny red writing, “Andrew—this poem is so funny. This should be published!” -Andrew Clements)
He started his literary career by writing songs. Then he worked for several publishing companies where he published, acquired, edited, marketed, and developed quality children's books. In 1985, Clements added his own work to the market with a picture book entitled Bird Delbert. His first novel was the award-winning Frindle, which has won sixteen state book awards, as well as the Christopher Award.
Clements lives in Maine with his wife Rebecca and has four sons- John, Nathaniel, George and Charles. George and Charles are in the new acoustic bluegrass group The Lonely Heartstring Band.
The Children's Literature Association named Frindle the best English-language children's book published in 1996 that did not win a major contemporary book award, thus making it the winner of the Phoenix Award for 2016.
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Wikipedia