Ann M. Martin

Ann Matthews Martin (born August 12, 1955) is an American children's fiction writer, known best for The Baby-Sitters Club series.^[1]

Early life

Ann Matthews Martin grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother, Edith, was a pre-school teacher and her father, Henry, was a cartoonist for The New Yorker and other publications.^[2] Her mother's ancestry can be traced back to the pilgrims who traveled on the Mayflower in 1620.^[3]

Martin developed an interest in writing from an early age. Before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl.^[4] Martin loved creative writing in elementary school and discovered her passion for writing in second grade. She began writing short stories, and her fourth-grade teacher wrote on her student folder that she would make a wonderful writer because she spent so much of her free time writing in notebooks.^[3] Her favorite subjects in middle school and high school were English and French. Her least favorite subject was Math.^[5]

As a teen, Martin loved working with children and decided to become a teacher. She wanted to help children with disabilities, and she worked during the summer at the Eden Institute, a school for autistic children in her hometown.^[3]

After graduating from Princeton High School in 1973, Martin attended Smith College from 1973-1977. She studied early-childhood education and child psychology. Her senior thesis was on the use of children’s literature in the classroom. She lived in Gardiner House and wrote for Smith College newspaper, The Sophian.^[6] Describing her Smith education, Martin said “It was an environment of strong, independent women, both the students and the professors.” Her time at Smith influenced her identity as a feminist and inspired her to portray female characters who were like the women she knew in her own life.^[2]

Career

After graduating from Smith College, Martin taught in a split fourth and fifth-grade classroom at Plumfield School in Noroton, Connecticut.^[6] Her students, ages 8–13, struggled with learning disabilities including dyslexia and autism. Martin said that her work with special needs children influenced her writing about children.^[3]

After teaching, Martin decided to pursue publishing. She worked her way up from an editorial assistant to a senior editor, and she worked for several well-known children’s book publishers, including Pocket Books and Scholastic. She is now a full-time writer.^[3]

In 1983, she published her first book, Bummer Summer, which earned the Children’s Choice Award in 1985. She began writing The Baby-Sitters Club series in 1985 while working for Scholastic as a children’s book editor.^[3] After Martin wrote the first 35 novels in The Baby-Sitters Club series^[7] she has since concentrated on writing single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s. One of those novels, A Corner of the Universe, won a Newbery Honor in 2003.^[8] In 2010, Martin published a prequel to The Baby-Sitters Club series titled The Summer Before.^[9][10] In 2016 Martin's book Rain Reign won the Dolly Gray Children's Literature Award.

Martin finds the ideas for her books from many different sources; some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are about contemporary problems and struggles. All of her characters, including the members of The Baby-Sitters Club, are fictional, but many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes she names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.^[11]

In 1990, Martin and her colleagues founded "The Lisa Libraries" to honor and memorialize their friend Lisa Novak. This non-profit organization distributes new books to children and establishes libraries in under-served areas.^[12] In the same year, Martin also founded the Ann M. Martin Foundation, which provides financial support for art, education, and literacy programs in addition to programs for abused and stray animals.^[3]

Personal life

After living in New York City for many years, Martin moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York.^[13]

Works

Series longer than two books are listed in the next section.

Standalone novels

• Bummer Summer (1983)
• Inside Out (1984)
• Missing Since Monday (1986)
• With and Without You (1986)
• Just a Summer Romance (1987)
• Slam Book (1987)
• Yours Turly, Shirley (1988)
• Ma and Pa Dracula (1989)
• Belle Teal (2001)
• A Corner of the Universe (2002)
• Here Today (2005)
• On Christmas Eve (2006)
• Rain Reign (2014)

Novels and sequels

• Stage Fright (1984)
• Me and Katie (The Pest) (1985)
• Ten Kids, No Pets (1988)
• Eleven Kids, One Summer (1991)
• P.S. Longer Letter Later (1998), by Martin and Paula Danziger
• Snail Mail No More (1999), Martin and Danziger
• A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray (2005)
• Everything for a Dog (2009)
• Ten Rules for Living with My Sister (2011)
• Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far) (2012)

Picture books

• Rachel Parker, Kindergarten Showoff (1992) with illustrations by Nancy Poydar
• Leo The Magnificat (1996) with illustrations by Emily Arnold McCully

Short stories

• 8 x 2 = Sweet Sixteen, a short story featuring Karen Brewer included in the children's anthology It's Great to Be Eight (2000)
• The Lost Art of Letter Writing, a short story included in the young adult anthology What You Wish For (2011)

Other works

• Because of Shoe and Other Dog Stories (edited) (2012)

References

External links

• Ann M. Martin at publisher Scholastic
• Ann M. Martin by Margaret Becker, 1993
• Ann M. Martin at Library of Congress Authorities, with 366 catalog records
• Ann M Martin Papers in the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College
• Ann M. Martin Foundation
• The Lisa Libraries