Deborah Hopkinson (born February 4, 1952)^[1] is an American writer of over seventy children's books, primarily historical fiction, nonfiction and picture books.

Personal life and education

Hopkinson was born February 4, 1952, in Lowell, Massachusetts^[2] to Russell W. and Gloria D. Hopkinson.^[1]

She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1973 and a Master of Arts from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1978.^[1]

Hopkinson is married to Andrew D. Thomas, and the couple has two children: Rebekah and Dimitri.^[1] She presently lives near Portland, Oregon.^[3]

Career

Before writing full-time, Hopkinson worked as a philanthropic fundraiser with Oregon State University, Whitman College, and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.^[4] From 1981 to 1984, she served as the marketing director for the Manoa Valley Theater in Honolulu.^[4] Afterwards, she worked as a development director at the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation (1985 to 1989), then the East–West Center in Honolulu (1989 to 1994).^[4] For the next decade, she was the director of grants at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, after which she served as the director for foundation relations for the Oregon State University Foundation in Corvallis, Oregon.^[4]

Hopkinson published her first book in 1993 and has since published more than 70 books for children, including the Sibert Honor title, Titanic: Voices from the Disaster.

Awards and honors

Twenty-three of Hopkinson's books are Junior Library Guild selections:

• A Band of Angels (May 1995)^[5]
• Birdie’s Lighthouse (September 1997)^[6]
• Bluebird Summer (June 2001)^[7]
• Fannie in the Kitchen (September 2001)^[8]
• Girl Wonder (May 2003)^[9]
• Apples to Oregon (November 2004)^[10]
• Up Before Daybreak (August 2006)^[11]
• Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek (November 2008)^[12]
• Home on the Range (January 2009)^[13]
• Stagecoach Sal (February 2009)^[14]
• A Boy Called Dickens (February 2012)^[15]
• Titanic (April 2012)^[16]
• Annie and Helen (November 2012)^[17]
• Knit Your Bit (April 2013)^[18]
• The Great Trouble (January 2014)^[19]
• A Bandit’s Tale (June 2016)^[20]
• Steamboat School (August 2016)^[21]
• Dive! World War II Stories of Sailors & Submarines in the Pacific (November 2016)^[22]
• D-Day: The World War II Invasion That Changed History (October 2018)^[23]
• Carter Reads the Newspaper (February 2019)^[24]
• Deadliest Hurricanes Then and Now (April 2022)^[25]
• The Story of a Story (June 2022)^[26]
• The Deadliest Fires Then and Now (October 2022)^[27]

In 2012, Titanic: Voices from the Disaster was named one of the best nonfiction children's books of the year by The Horn Book Magazine.^[28]

In 2017, Booklist included Steamboat School on their "Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth" list.^[29]

In 2019, Carter Reads the Newspaper was named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Public Library and the New York Public Library.^[24]

The Story of a Story was included in the Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices 2021.^[30]

Selected books

Picture books

• Fannie in the Kitchen: The Whole Story from Soup to Nuts of How Fannie Farmer Invented Recipes with Precise Measurements, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Atheneum, 2001.^[74][75][76]

Early Readers

• Birdie’s Lighthouse, illustrated by Kimberly Bulcken Root (1997)
• Maria’s Comet, illustrated by Deborah Lanino (1999)
• A Band of Angels, illustrated by Raúl Colón (2002)
• Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings, illustrated by Terry Widener (2003)
• Apples to Oregon: Being the (Slightly) True Narrative of How a Brave Pioneer Father Brought Apples, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Grapes, and Cherries (and Children) Across the Plains, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter (2004)
• Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek: A Tall Thin Tale, illustrated by John Hendrix (2008)
• Annie and Helen, illustrated by Raúl Colón (2012)
• Knit Your Bit: A World War I Story, illustrated by Steven Guarnaccia (2013)
• Philippe Cousteau illustrated by Meilo So (2016)
• Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig, illustrated by Charlotte Voake (2016)
• A Letter to My Teacher, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter (2017)
• Under the Bodhi Tree: A Story of the Buddha, illustrated by Kailey Whitman (2018)
• Ordinary, Extraordinary Jane Austen: The Story of Six Novels, Three Notebooks, a Writing Box, and One Clever Girl, illustrated by Qin Leng (2018)
• Butterflies Belong Here: A Story of One Idea, Thirty Kids, and a World of Butterflies, illustrated by Meilo So (2020)
• My Little Golden Book about Dolly Parton (2021)
• My Little Golden Book about Betty White (2021)
• The Story of a Story, illustrated by Hadley Hooper (2021)
• Cinderella and a Mouse Called Fred, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (2023)
• Happy Earth Day! (2023)

Middle Grade

• Hear My Sorrow: The Diary of Angela Denoto, A Shirtwaist Worker, New York City, 1909 (2004)
• The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel (2013)
• Courage & Defiance: Stories of Spies, Saboteurs, and Survivors in World War II Denmark (2015)
• A Bandit’s Tale: The Muddled Misadventures of a Pickpocket (2016)
• Dive!: World War II Stories of Sailors & Submarines in the Pacific (2016)
• D‑Day: The World War II Invasion That Changed History (2018)
• The Deadliest Diseases Then and Now (2021)
• We Must Not Forget: Holocaust Stories of Survival and Resistance (2021)
• The Deadliest Fires Then and Now (2022)
• The Deadliest Hurricanes Then and Now (2022)