Marion Dane Bauer, American children’s author, celebrates her birthday on Nov. 20. She was born in 1938 in Oglesby, Ill., a small prairie town in northern Illinois, in a four-room frame house in the shadow of a cement mill, where her dad was a mill chemist. Her brother Willis was two years older.

Marion started kindergarten when she was four, and being younger than most of the other kids, she felt like an outsider. As a child, she made up stories and acted them out for her dolls and friends. An aunt encouraged her during her teenage years to continue writing. By the time she got to high school, she was more outgoing. She was yearbook editor, and loved writing stories, so she decided to get her college degree in journalism. She attended LaSalle-Peru-Oglesby Junior College, the University of Missouri and the University of Oklahoma, where she graduated in 1962. She did end up with a degree to teach English.

Marion met and married Ronald Bauer, who was studying to become an Episcopal priest. She taught high school English for a while, had two children, Peter and Beth Alison, and several foster children. She left her marriage after 28 years.

Marion is one of the founders and First Faculty Chair of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in writing for children and young adults.

Living in Falcon Heights, Minn., Marion is retired from teaching, but not from writing. She has published over 100 books, board books, picture books, early reader books, middle school and young adult novels, both fiction and non-fiction. She has won numerous awards for her writings. Her books have been translated in over a dozen languages. Her first novel, published in 1976, was “Shelter from the Wind.” “On My Honor,” published in 1986, received the Newbery Honor in 1987.

We have one of her (B-2 Bears) books, “My Mother Is Mine.”