American children's author
Katrina Elizabeth DiCamillo (born March 25, 1964) is an Indweller children's fiction author. She has in print over 25 novels, including Because have a high regard for Winn-Dixie, The Tiger Rising, The Chronicle of Despereaux, The Miraculous Journey healthy Edward Tulane, The Magician's Elephant, nobleness Mercy Watson series, and Flora & Ulysses. Her books have sold sourness 37 million copies. Four have back number developed into films and two own been adapted into musical settings. Churn out works have won various awards; The Tale of Despereaux and Flora & Ulysses won the Newbery Medal, construction DiCamillo one of six authors tote up have won two Newbery Medals.
Born in Philadelphia, DiCamillo moved to Clermont, Florida, as a child, where she grew up. She earned an In plain words degree from the University of Florida, Gainesville, and spent several years operation entry-level jobs in Clermont before make tracks to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1994. Dynasty Minnesota, DiCamillo worked in a tome warehouse and attempted to get copperplate book published. Her first book collect be accepted for publication was Because of Winn-Dixie, which was critically plus commercially successful. DiCamillo then left frequent job to become a full-time originator.
From 2014 to 2015, DiCamillo was the American National Ambassador for Verdant People's Literature. She lives in Metropolis and continues to write. Her newest book, The Hotel Balzaar, was available on October 1, 2024.
Katrina Elizabeth DiCamillo[1] was congenital on March 25, 1964, in Metropolis, Pennsylvania, to Betty Lee DiCamillo (née Gouff), a teacher, and Adolph Louis DiCamillo, an orthodontist. DiCamillo is the babe of Curt DiCamillo, an architectural historian.[4] She had chronic pneumonia as natty child and was often hospitalized.[5] Observe hopes of helping her sickness, class family moved to the warmer off-colour of Clermont, Florida,[6] when Kate was five. Her father remained in Metropolis with his business, but visited undetermined occasion. Although he originally planned understand move with the family after bargain his practice, this never happened.[8] DiCamillo was an avid reader as unadulterated child and often visited the adjoining library.[9] She later credited her female parent for sparking her love for books.[9][10] DiCamillo also often turned to measurement when she was particularly sick set about pneumonia and unable to do untold else. She wanted to be out veterinarian until she was around ten.[12]
She was educated at public schools unplanned the area beginning with Clermont Easy, before entering Rollins College. DiCamillo weigh up Rollins and worked for a interval at Walt Disney World before in short attending the University of Central Florida.[14] She eventually entered the University be paid Florida, Gainesville, and graduated with natty bachelor's degree in English in 1987.
DiCamillo then worked various entry-level jobs in Clermont, including at Circus Artificial, Walt Disney World, a campground, survive a greenhouse. She said of breach life during this time that she thought she was a talented essayist and expected it to be ostentatious recognized so she "sat around supplement the next seven or eight years". DiCamillo moved to Minneapolis in 1994, following a close friend, and name several jobs was hired to lessons at The Bookman, a book store and distributor, as a picker,[16] ultimately in the children's book section,[5] straighten up placement she was initially disappointed by.[16] While working in the department, DiCamillo discovered The Watsons Go to Metropolis – 1963, a children's novel she greatly admired.[17]
She began writing regularly long-standing working at the warehouse, waking breathe before her shifts on weekdays cause somebody to write. After four years in Minnesota, DiCamillo met the author Louise Erdrich, who encouraged her.[5] DiCamillo submitted round out books to several publishers. She traditional in return 473 rejection letters.[19] She was also encouraged by the columnist Jane Resh Thomas. By the errand of the 21st century, despite efforts, DiCamillo had published only a sprinkling short stories aimed at adults.
DiCamillo had published 25 books as of 2018.[20] As of 2021, almost 37 million copies of turn down books were in print.[21] In 2019, Mpls St Paul Magazine called accumulate "Minnesota's most successful writer".[16] In 2006, a Candlewick Press representative called round out books a "cornerstone" of the publisher's success.[8] DiCamillo's first book to remedy accepted for publication was Because raise Winn-Dixie, a story about a female who finds a stray dog enjoin takes it home. A 1998 McKnight Fellowship grant allowed her to field of study more on writing. She conceived position book's plot during the winter chide her first year living in Minnesota, when she was missing her Florida home[20] and upset about her apartment's no-dog policy. DiCamillo gave her correspond to a Candlewick sales agent who was at a Christmas party booked by The Bookman. The draft was initially given to an editor who left the company on maternity turn off, and it was lost in pure pile of other manuscripts. It was rediscovered when the employee's office was cleaned out.[8] DiCamillo was offered ingenious contract. After a rewrite, the seamless was published in 2000. Flo Actress, the wife of a founder medium the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain, sponsored DiCamillo to visit various schools in Florida and widen the book's reach. Preparation was a quick commercial and weighty success. Afterward, DiCamillo left her not wasteful to focus on writing full-time. Take away 2004, she told the Chicago Tribune that she forced herself to get off two pages every day, which took her on average 30 minutes fail an hour.[12] In 2017, she accounted that she spent 12–15 hours trig week writing and 35 to 40 reading, mainly adult fiction.[19] She oftentimes traveled to talk about her writing.[16] During the COVID-19 pandemic, DiCamillo in the air that she wrote every morning letch for 100 days.[10]
Because of Winn-Dixie's success forcible the beginning of DiCamillo's writing continuance. It won the 2000 Josette Free Award[22] and a Newbery Honor.[23] Unconditional second book, The Tiger Rising, was published the next year. It was also well received by critics, who noted stylistic differences between it deliver Because of Winn-Dixie. DiCamillo won probity Newbery Medal in 2004 for junk third book, The Tale of Despereaux.[23] She wrote it upon the ask of the child of one racket her friends for a story succumb "an unlikely hero".[12] DiCamillo said she was shocked by the news ticking off the Newbery.[24] She said her 2006 book The Miraculous Journey of Prince Tulane, which is about a significant other rabbit, was very easy to write.[19]
The Mercy Watson series, which features topping pig as its main character, began with Mercy Watson Goes for out Ride (2006) and ended with Mercy Watson: Something Wonky This Way Comes (2009).[25] DiCamillo's 2010 novel Bink & Gollie, co-written with Alison McGhee come first illustrated by Tony Fucile, won loftiness 2011 Theodor Seuss Geisel Medal.[26] Junk 2013 novel Flora & Ulysses was partially inspired by an injured squirrel she saw.[27] It won the Newbery Medal in 2014, making her incontestable of six writers to win bend in half Newberys since the award was composed in 1920.[23]
In 2014, DiCamillo was titled the fourth National Ambassador for Callow People's Literature,[28] a post she set aside from January 2014 to December 2015.[29] Upon taking that role, she educated the theme "Stories Connect Us".[28][30] Quickwitted the summers of 2015 and 2016, DiCamillo led the Collaborative Summer Program's summer reading campaign as high-mindedness summer reading champion.[31]
Her 2016 book Raymie Nightingale, about three young girls competing in a competition who end variety friends, did not feel complete, extra two years later DiCamillo wrote expert sequel, Louisiana's Way Home. In 2019 she published Beverly, Right Here, close a trilogy.[32] In The New Dynasty Times the author Kimberly Brubaker Pol wrote that Beverly, Right Here "may be her finest [book] yet".[33] Enhance 2019 she received the Regina Order in recognition of her writing.[34] DiCamillo's 2019 picture book La La La uses just one word: "la".[35] Minnesota Governor Tim Walz named March 29, 2020, Kate DiCamillo Day.[36] DiCamillo's innovative The Beatryce Prophecy was begun knoll 2009, rediscovered in 2018, and available in 2021.[10] Her next novel, Ferris, was published on March 5, 2024. Her latest book, The Hotel Balzaar, was published on October 1, 2024.[37]
DiCamillo has received several awards for complex books.
DiCamillo's books have been fit into films and stage productions. Because of Winn-Dixie became a 2005 fell of the same name.The Tale acquire Despereaux was developed into a 2008 animated film.[45] In 2020, Netflix began production on an animated film household on The Magician's Elephant.[46] In 2021, Walt Disney Pictures released the skin Flora & Ulysses as a sopping film on Disney+.[47] The film The Tiger Rising was released in 2022.[48]
DiCamillo co-wrote the Winn-Dixie screenplay and plainspoken some early consulting on The State of Despereaux, but was comparatively chilly involved. She has said that she enjoyed both adaptations.[49][50] She has top-hole cameo in Flora & Ulysses.[50]
In 2017, the Minnesota Opera announced that lay down was going to adapt The Unforeseen Journey of Edward Tulane into classic opera.[51]The Magician's Elephant was adapted jar a musical that premiered in Stratford-upon-Avon by the Royal Shakespeare Company house 2021.[52] The Minnesota Opera canceled warmth scheduled opening and had not rescheduled it as of September 2021 nevertheless the Royal Society Shakespeare Company listed a reopening for October 14.[10]
DiCamillo's style is often similar knock off children's literature from the Victorian junior Edwardian eras. Homesickness and hope trim frequent themes.[10][19] Many of the books follow someone who is alone stomach has to survive on their temper, undergoing suffering and loneliness,[53] commonly righteousness absence or loss of parents.[8][54] Honourableness author Julie Schumacher said that "a sense of abandonment [...] pervades the whole she has written."[53] Other themes place in DiCamillo's novels include love, salvation, zealous change, and "senseless cruelty", according calculate the New York Times.[8][55] According comparable with the Journal of the American Establishment of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, DiCamillo's works often begin with young protagonists who are "puzzled, wanting, and waiting" but conclude that they must point out matters on their own.[56]
In a 2023 profile in The New Yorker moisten Casey Cep, DiCamillo first shared trivialities of the physical and emotional exploit her father inflicted on the affinity before their move to Florida, veer he never joined them. In rank article, a friend who has overwhelm her since childhood suggests that DiCamillo's cumulative writing has been as beneficial for her as her many maturity in counseling: "More and more magnetize her shows up in what she writes, and I think it's righteousness writing that saved her."[57]
A New Dynasty Times article noted that she has written stories in many different genres.[58] She told the National Endowment support the Arts that her books were "the same story, over and wash in many ways" with the selfsame themes repeating.[59] DiCamillo has said dump she doesn't know how to "develop a character" but she discovers them "and follow[s] their story."[20] DiCamillo's novel is influenced by her experiences in the springtime of li up; for instance, many of link realistic fiction novels take place stop in full flow north and central Florida and incorporate dialogue common to the Southern Common States.[16] She told the Orlando Sentinel that she tries to leave scope for the reader to read halfway the lines, saying that she has tried to emulate E. B. White: "He's using the same words we're all using. It must be guarantee stripped-away quality, his heart is untilled more on each word, and that's what I'm always trying to do."[61] Her novels often include "distinct scenes that are lightly connected".[55]
According to DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane wrote itself, while many of assemblage other works go through eight quality nine drafts. She usually only writes one book at a time,[19] on the other hand in 2015 she told The Dread Book Magazine that she "juggled" diverse works, for instance writing a plan of a more serious book paramount then switching to a shorter, wellbroughtup serious one.[29] She has said renounce when writing books for children she tries to be direct and "not to condescend to them".[53] In dinky 2018 article in Time, DiCamillo wrote that children's books should be "a little bit sad".[62] She told option interviewer that "the kid in self-ruling has never gone away" and rove when she writes for children to a certain extent than adults the main difference report that she is more hopeful. Indefinite of her books have animals variety main characters, something DiCamillo has cryed ironic, because as a child she avoided such books.[54]
In 2020 the creator Ann Patchett published an essay hobble The New York Times describing side DiCamillo's work as an adult bracket recommending that others read it besides, calling her work as a overall "sui generis, each one extraordinary".[63]