Mary Downing Hahn, American author of young adult novels for ages 8-12, grades 3-7, celebrates her birth date on Dec. 9, 1937, in Washington, D.C. Her dad was a mechanic and her mother a teacher.

She grew up in a small shingled house in College Park, Md. with several neighborhood kids. Growing up she loved to read, draw and make up stories which she told in pictures. At 13, she started a book “Small Town Life,” which she never finished, but it started her writing instead of just illustrating. She kept a diary in high school and wrote poetry in college.

She married William Hahn in 1961, and they had two daughters before divorcing in 1977. She married Norman Jacob, a librarian, in 1982.

A former school librarian who also taught art at a junior high school, she is now best known for her suspenseful ghost stories, which have won many children’s awards. Her first book was published in 1979, titled “The Sara Summer.” Her most famous book, “Stepping on the Cracks,” won the Scott O’Dell Award for historical fiction for 1992.

Mary is an avid reader, traveler and all-around arts lover. She now lives in Columbia, Md. with her two cats, Oscar and Rufus.

We have one of her fiction books, “Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story.”