Katherine Paterson, the author of Bridge to Terabithia and many other children's novels, was born as Katherine Womeldorf in Huai'an, Jiangsu, China, in 1932. Her parents were missionaries in China, and her father worked as a school principal. Paterson's first language was Chinese, and she later had to learn to speak English like a native when she moved to the United States. In 1937, her family had to leave China when the Japanese invaded the country, and they moved to Virginia. They returned to Shanghai shortly thereafter, but the war uprooted them again in 1940, and they lived in North Carolina. When she first arrived in the U.S., she was regarded as strange and turned to reading as a refuge. Paterson's father's work compelled her to move a great deal when she was growing up. By the age of 18, she had been forced to move 18 times. After studying English literature and the Bible in Tennessee, she moved to Japan, where she became a missionary. Her work has won several awards, including two Newbery Medals and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal.
No comments:
Post a Comment