I’ve ridden an elephant, swallowed fried grasshoppers, lived on a commune, flown a hangglider (and crashed), picked coffee beans and fed them to a monkey, peered into a live volcano, watched my toddler soar around a big top in the arms of a Mexican trapeze artist dressed as Spiderman, swum through a pitch-black cave to a tiny and perfect hidden beach, milked goats, skied in the Alps (and crashed), hiked up a glacier and alarmed a moose, torn down a barn, gone to a “sit-up” (a Jamaican wake), hung out with Cambodian monks, pedaled across the Blue Ridge Mountains in a homemade superhero cape, driven a hundred-year-old car (and DIDN'T crash!), woven lots of hammocks, snaked a drain, gazed upon The Garden of Earthly Delights, and danced till dawn. Mostly, though, I spend a lot of time at the computer. In pajamas.

Official-sounding bio

Mara Rockliff is the author of many lively historical books for children, including Around America to Win the Vote: Two Suffragists, a Kitten, and 10,000 Miles and Anything but Ordinary Addie: The True Story of Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic, as well as Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France, winner of the Cook Prize and an Orbis Pictus Honor book.

Previous picture books include Gingerbread for Liberty!, The Grudge Keeper, Chik Chak Shabbat and Me and Momma and Big John, winner of the Golden Kite Award. Under the pen name Lewis B. Montgomery, she wrote all twelve books in the popular Milo & Jazz Mysteries chapter book series. Rockliff is also the author of Get Real: What Kind of World Are You Buying?, a tween-friendly guide to the social and environmental impact of our shopping choices, which has become required reading in middle schools across the United States and around the world.

Rockliff's public speaking experience includes TV and radio as well as bookstores, libraries, schools, children's museums, writing workshops, book festivals, and state and regional conferences for teachers and librarians. She lives in eastern Pennsylvania with her family. Visit her online at mararockliff.com.

Interviews etc. (most recent first)

• Teachers Write: Evaluating the Reliability of Research Sources
• A Conversation with Mara Rockliff
• Mara Rockliff & Iacopo Bruno: Contrasting the Factual and the Fanciful (Shelf Awareness Maximum Shelf feature—scroll past review to see the interview)
• Jama's Alphabet Soup: Mara Rockliff on Gingerbread for Liberty!
• Publishers Weekly: 'Gingerbread for Liberty' Serves Up Slice of Revolutionary History
• Jewish Picture Books for Kids: Welcome Mara Rockliff
• Mara Rockliff and Eliza Wheeler: The Making of The Grudge Keeper
• Watch. Connect. Read. Author Mara Rockliff
• The Work of a Community: Mara Rockliff Interview
• Cynsations Guest Post: Mara Rockliff on Writing the Longer Picture Book
• A Peek at the Creative Space of Mara Rockliff
• Quickie Interview: Mara Rockliff
• Interview with Get Real Author Mara Rockliff
• Author Branding - Confessions of a Brand Hater

Email me at: 

Or contact my agent, Jennifer Laughran of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, at jennL@andreabrownlit.com.