Alma Flor Ada, Cuban-American author of children’s books, poetry and novels, celebrates her birth date on Jan. 3, 1938, in Camaguey, Cuba.

Alma grew up in a big house on the outskirts of Camaguey, where she loved to read, play outside on the farm and listen to her mother sing old ballads at bedtime. Her grandmother taught her to read before she was three and grandmother, dad and uncle were all great storytellers.

At fifteen, she came to the United States for a summer school beginning her life as a bilingual person. She graduated from high school in Cuba, spent a year at Barry College in Miani and attended schools in Madrid and Peru. She completed her education with a Fulbright Scholars Exchange Grant and appointed a Radcliffe Institute scholar at Harvard University.

She began her teaching career in Lima, Peru and taught at several universities throughout the United States, retiring from the University of San Francisco as a Professor Emerita. She was recognized for her work promoting bilingual and multicultural education for children and young adults in the United States.

Alma has written extensively for both children and adults in both Spanish and English. She has translated extensively from English into Spanish for several authors, including Judy Blume, Judith Voirst and Jane Yolen, to mention a few. She is also the author of “A Magical Encounter: Latino Children’s Literature for the Classroom.” She is the award-winning author of more than 200 books for children. Her stories on poetry, picture books and novels offer rich, multicultural perspectives

Alma and her husband have four children, and she currently lives in Marin County, Calif. and has nine grandchildren.

We have one of her junior non-fiction books “Gathering the Sun: A B C” in Spanish and English.