Guess which Newbery Award winning author lives above an airplane hangar with her husband? Betsy Byars, who won the Newbery Award for her novel The Summer of the Swans. Byars and her husband are avid aviators and fly their own airplanes whenever they can.
Byars has written over 60 books, most about children who are navigating the treacheries of growing up. Her Blossom Family series has recently been reissued in paperback. The series chronicles the Blossoms whose mother rides the rodeo circuit and whose grandfather collects aluminum cans to recycle. The first book of the series, The Not-Just-Anybody Family introduces Junior Blossom as he is about to "fly" off the barn roof as his older sister and brother watch from below. The whole family, mother, grandfather, three children and dog, are fully drawn and their adventures are humorous tragedies of errors.
Herculeah Jones is Byars' pre-teen sleuth, starring in four different novels. Herculeah solves real crimes to the frustration of her Private Eye mother and her police detective father.
These two series just scratch the surface of Byars' impressive writing output. Two of Byars' children, Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers, write books for children now, too. So, the legacy will continue.
Check out www.BetsyByars.com for more information on this prolific author. Then stop by the library and check out her books.
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