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 Katherine Paterson was born in China, where her parents were missionaries. She was the middle one of five siblings, the older and younger of whom often paired off together, leaving her feeling rather alone. When war came the family moved back to America, where Katherine hoped and believed she would feel at home. But she didn't: the other children at school though she was odd and had a strange way of talking.
The school library was a place she could escape to: in books she could find lots of friends, but still didn't have any of her own in reality.
Looking back she has said that the terrible time she went through has helped her write many of her best books, because she knows how it feels to be an outsider and alone. But that was no comfort to her at the time.
Katherine has written more than thirty books. Some are historical novels from Japan, China and America, such as Sign of the Chrysanthemum or Of Nightingales that Weep. Many are set in present-day America, often about children who are excluded and have to take care of themselves. Yet despite their difficulties, they are usually strong, such as the main character in The Great Gilly Hopkins.
Bridge to Terabithia was her breakthrough novel. It's a wonderful story about friendship and death, which has won several awards in America and been translated into many different languages.
Katherine is married and has four children and seven grandchildren. She likes to read all kinds of books, both for adults and children. The Secret Garden and Winnie the Pooh were two of her favourite books when she was a child. In addition to reading, she likes to play the piano, play tennis and occasionally to watch television: her favourite programme is The West Wing.
Born in 1932, when Katherine goes out to talk to children in schools, they're often surprised that someone of her age can understand exactly how they feel and think. She answers by saying that she was once a child too and still remembers just how it feels.
On her website www.terabithia.com you can read how she considers that adults today are poor at taking care of children; "We cuddle them, mistreat them or ignore them, but we fail to respect them as people. We have to get better at that."
A selection of books of Katherine Paterson
 The Great Gilly Hopkins
Gilly Hopkins' real name is Galadriel, after a queen in Lord of the Rings, but everyone calls her Gilly. Her mother abandoned her when she was little, and she has moved from foster home to foster home, always making trouble for herself. Now she's in a new home that she thinks is awful. The house is dirty, the furniture shabby and her new foster mother is a woman Gilly thinks is stupid and as fat as a hippopotamus.
Gilly aims to make life tough for her new foster mother and sets out as she means to go on. She also writes to her real mother asking her to come and fetch her away.
Gilly is angry, tough, hard – but she's sad on the inside. As you read the book you start to understand long before she does that she's actually beginning to like her new home. And when a lady from social services calls about Gilly's letter to her mother, both Gilly and the reader want her to go away and leave Gilly where she is.
It would be a shame to reveal the ending, but it's one that leaves you thinking for a long time: is it good or bad, happy or sad?
Overall it's a very good book, and everyone is sure to like the character of Gilly.
 Lyddie
Will Lyddie ever be able to buy back her father's little farm again? That's her big dream. First her father left the farm, then her mother too. The younger children have ended up in different families. Lyddie, who is only thirteen, has to work in a large textiles factory. She saves up every penny she earns working with the noisy machines in order to buy back her childhood home and take care of her younger siblings.
Lyddie lives in the middle of the 19th century, and she's not afraid of working hard. So hard that she doesn't notice that she's changing into a rather hard and mean person. Yet as a reader, you can't help liking her as you learn to understand her.
Katherine Paterson paints a vivid and compelling picture of how it might have been to be a poor girl more than a hundred years ago, and just how hard factory life could be.
Park's Quest
Park daydreams that he's Parsifal, one of King Arthur's bravest knights. In reality he's an ordinary boy whose father died in the Vietnam War. He knows virtually nothing about his father, and his mother is unwilling to talk about him. He's not even allowed to go to the Vietnam monument in Washington, the wall on which all the names of the Vietnam soldiers killed are written. Eventually he goes there in secret. Convinced that his father was a hero, he can't understand why his mother doesn't want to talk about him.
Finally he persuades his mother to take him to his meet his grandfather (his father's father), who lives on a large farm in the country.
But nothing there is as he expected. And just who is the angry Asian girl who goes around as if she owns the place?
 Jacob Have I Loved
13 year-old Louise and Caroline are twins. Caroline is pretty, admired, spoilt and gets all the attention: at least, according to Louise, who envies her sister and sometimes even hates her. Caroline is allowed to take piano lessons and go to music college, whereas Louise has to help with the chores around the house. The book is written from Louise's point of view, and we are not always certain that her view of her twin sister is entirely fair.
There are other interesting characters, too. Their father is a fisherman who sings for the mussels he gathers from the sea. Grandmother is a strange mixture of meanness, prejudice, clear-thinking and senility. And Louise's only true friend is a mystical and wise old man who arouses her admiration.
Following Louise long into her adult life, we learn both to understand her and to like her.
 Bridge to Terabithia
Jess is ten years old when a new girl joins his class at school. Her name is Leslie and she's unlike the other girls: she has strange clothes, her parents are writers, and they have masses of books and no television. Leslie can also run faster than Jess, who was previously the fastest runner in the school. Leslie gets picked on by the others, but she and Jess become good friends.
Together they create their own secret world, Terabithia, a kingdom by a magic river. In Terabithia, Jess is King and Leslie is Queen. It is a place where no enemy can reach them, and where Jess learns to see the world in a way that he has never done before. But suddenly something happens that changes everything…
Bridge to Terabithia is a wonderful book about the nature of friendship and life itself.
Text: Birgitta Fransson
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