Cynthia Rylant

Cynthia Rylant (born 6 June 1954) is an American author and librarian. She has written more than 100 children's books, including works of fiction (picture books, short stories and novels), nonfiction, and poetry. Several of her books have won awards, including her novel Missing May, which won the 1993 Newbery Medal, and A Fine White Dust which was a 1987 Newbery Honor book. Two of her books are Caldecott Honor Books.

Many of Rylant's books are about her childhood in Appalachia, her pets, the joys and hardships of family life, and the feelings of loners. Many of her books are written in series.

Rylant was born in Hopewell, West Virginia, the daughter of a U.S. Army veteran, John Tune Smith, and Leatrel Smith née Rylant. Rylant uses her mother's maiden name as her pen name. She spent her first four years in Illinois. Her parents separated when she was four years old, and she was sent to live with her mother's parents in Cool Ridge, West Virginia, while her mother attended nursing school and was able to visit her only a few times a year. Growing up in the Appalachian region of the U.S. during the 1960s, Rylant lived in a very depressed economic environment. Her grandparents, extended family and kind local townspeople provided a loving, nurturing, safe environment, while the little girl "waited ... until someone could return for me", but they were very poor and lived a rustic life, with no electricity, running water or automobile. As a result, she never saw children's books as a child, reading mainly comic books and enjoying the outdoors.

Four years later, she moved back with her mother, who had relocated to nearby Beaver, West Virginia.There had been no libraries or bookstores in Cool Ridge, and there were none in Beaver. Rylant never saw her father again, and he died when she was thirteen years old. She later wrote, "I did not have a chance to know him or to say goodbye to him, and that is all the loss I needed to become a writer." When she was nine years old, Rylant fell in love with Paul McCartney and The Beatles. However, her West Virginia childhood was the major influence on her works, and many of them deal with life in the Appalachian region. As a teenager, Rylant became enchanted with Robert Kennedy, whom she met during his presidential campaign. She was deeply affected by his assassination. Also important to her emotional development was her relationship with a boy from school.

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