Kathryn Lasky
Kathryn Lasky
Kathryn Laskyis an American children's writer who also writes for adults under the names Kathryn Lasky Knight and E. L. Swann. Her children's books include several Dear America books, The Royal Diaries books, Sugaring Time, The Night Journey, Wolves of the Beyond, and the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth24 June 1944
CityIndianapolis, IN
CountryUnited States of America
I was actually very hesitant to write about Marie Antoinette. She seemed at first glance - well, I cannot think of any other term - an airhead of the first degree.
I think Sacajawea was caught in a series of tragic situations - her kidnapping as a child, her being passed from tribe to tribe, being sold into marriage. However, I never thought of her as a tragic figure. I do not think she was a victim in the way we think of tragic figures.
Never in a million years would I want to live at Versailles with Marie Antoinette or anybody else. I hate to tell you this but I did not even like visiting Versailles. I found it just too ornate. It was like a complete diet of cotton candy, marzipan, and whipped cream.
Manic depressive people often have incredible energy and a slightly skewed, but nonetheless valid, way of looking at things.
I love thinking of movie stars who could play the characters in the books I write.
I always wondered what it was like to be just a normal kid growing up in trying times or during a great moment in history.
With my husband, I have twice sailed across the Atlantic in a sailboat one third the length of the Mayflower. I know Atlantic gales inside and out. I endured one that lasted for three days with winds up to fifty knots.
My mother was a great advocate of women's rights, a member of the League of Women's Voters and lifelong member of Planned Parenthood and an advocate of a woman's rights in terms of reproductive issues. She was also a founding member of Common Cause in the state of Indiana.
It is not a happy lot being a princess in any country, but especially Japan in which every tiny aspect of one's life is governed by the most rigid rules of protocol.
In terms of the Japanese royal family, they were considered the direct descendants of a god. They are regarded as all-powerful and possessors of unimaginable wealth, and yet they are, more often than not, literally prisoners of tradition.
In our community here in Boston, we have had a tremendous influx of Russian Jews and Haitians. We call these people immigrants. But they come for the same reasons that William Bradford and William Brewster and John Carver came.
Mary Queen of Scots is the most 'normal' girl who became a queen that I have ever written about.
I loved to read, and if I could've been a professional reader, that's probably what I would've wanted to be!
I came from a home where everybody had a book.