Nora Raleigh Baskin (born May 18, 1961) is an American author of books for children and young adults.

Biography

Nora Baskin was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and is

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. When Baskin was three, her mother committed

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

, and many of her own feelings surrounding that incident have later fueled her writing. When Baskin was seven, she and her family moved to upstate

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. When she was 23, she graduated from the

State University of New York at Purchase The State University of New York at Purchase (commonly Purchase College or SUNY Purchase) is a public liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. It was fo ...

. Her books are based on her life, with Baskin feeling as though she has been writing about the same character much of her life. At first, Baskin began by writing fiction for adults and had been trying to get published for around five years. During a writing course Baskin took, a woman suggested she try writing for children, and Baskin changed her target audience. In 1999, the story of the "sad motherless little girl" that she felt had been inside of her became part of her first published novel, ''What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows''. In her novel ''Surfacing'', Baskin describes

grief Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cogni ...

and how for even small children a family tragedy can "scab over into guilt and blame," according to ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

''. Baskin is the winner of the Cuffie Award from ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'' for Most Promising New Author. Her book ''The Truth About My Bat Mitzvah'' was a 2008 Jewish Book Council Network selection. In 2010, she won the American Library Association's (ALA) Schneider Family Award for her book ''Anything but Typical''. Baskin teaches

writing Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...

and

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

in a school. She also holds writers' workshops for middle school. She lives in Weston, Connecticut, with her family.

Books

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * ''Seven Clues to Home'' (with Gae Posner). Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers. 2020. ISBN 9780593119617. * ''Consider the Octopus''. Henry Holt and Co. Books for Young Readers. 2022. ISBN 9781250793515.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Baskin, Nora Raleigh 1961 births 21st-century American novelists American children's writers American women children's writers American women novelists American young adult novelists Jewish women writers Novelists from New York (state) People from Weston, Connecticut State University of New York at Purchase alumni American women writers of young adult literature Writers from Brooklyn Living people 21st-century American women writers