Cynthia Rylant
(b. 1954)

Cynthia Rylant has written dozens of books for children and young adults, including picture books, short stories, novels, poetry, biography, and autobiography. With great warmth and a down-to-earth sense of humor, she explores the hopes and dreams, joys and losses of ordinary people, especially those of Appalachia, where she grew up. Her subjects cover a broad range–family life, animals, the choices that young people must make, and the challenges faced by older people.

Rylant was born on June 6, 1954, in Hopewell, Virginia. When she was four years old, she and her mother moved to West Virginia, where Rylant's grandparents cared for her for several years while her mother was away at nursing school.

Though she missed her mother deeply, a large and loving network of extended family, friends, and neighbors in her small rural community surrounded Rylant. She has many happy memories of her childhood, despite the family's poverty.

As a girl, Rylant loved to wander the back roads of her town–exploring, dreaming, making friends with all the local dogs, and observing the daily life of her friends and neighbors. She recalls being a sensitive child who "grieved over stray animals," and loved solitude as much as she loved having friends.

As she grew into her teens, Rylant began to feel restless in her small community and longed for broader horizons. Because the town had no library or bookstore, for example, Rylant became a regular consumer of comic books. Although she loved the people and the beautiful countryside, she began to dream of joining a larger world of musicians, artists, and writers.

In her autobiography But I'll Be Back Again, Rylant remembers two events from her teen years that expanded her awareness of the larger world. One was Senator Robert F. Kennedy's visit to her hometown in 1968, during his campaign for President. Rylant was in the crowd that met Kennedy at the airport, and she was able to shake his hand. Kennedy became a personal hero for her, and she was deeply troubled by his assassination just months later.

The other transforming event was a concert given in her school gymnasium by a traveling symphony orchestra. Rylant had never heard classical music before, and she was stunned by the performance. As she watched, she wondered what it would be like to spend one's life creating something so beautiful.

When Rylant left home for college in the 1970s, her life began to change dramatically. Her college English classes were a joyful discovery; she particularly remembers being "knocked off (her) feet" by a Langston Hughes story. She went on to earn a Master's degree in English Literature.

After college, she worked in the children's room of a public library, where she discovered great children's books for the first time. Inspired, she wrote her first book, When I Was Young in the Mountains, as a tribute to her grandparents, and the book was an immediate success, recognized as a Caldecott Honor Book in 1983.

Rylant soon became a critically acclaimed author of more books, including The Relatives Came, as well as the first volume in the now long-running Henry and Mudge series, about a boy and his dog. She branched out into poetry, short stories, and, in 1985, her first novel for young adults, A Blue-Eyed Daisy. Her novel Missing May won the prestigious Newbery Medal in 1993.

In 1993, Rylant broadened her career further when she began illustrating as well as writing her books. She was inspired to take this leap into art by the paintings of Grandma Moses, an untrained artist who celebrated the joys of rural life. "I felt such a freedom looking at her paintings," Rylant explains.

In recent years, she has experimented with both acrylic paintings and cut-paper collages as a creative outlet. She has illustrated her Everyday Book series, as well as Dog Heaven, The Whales, and The Bookshop Dog.

As a child, Rylant longed for a nice house, her own dogs and cats, and the opportunity to do something important. Today, she feels that those dreams have come true. The mother of a grown son, Rylant lives in a cozy house with two dogs and two cats. She loves movies, chocolate, stained glass, decorating her house, and writing.

Rylant is a writer with a unique voice and a deep sensitivity to the struggles and joys of everyday life. She is drawn to characters of all ages that live their lives with quiet dignity. She believes that "the best writing is that which is most personal, most revealing."

Rylant's characters form strong attachments with animals and struggle to protect and nurture them. Rylant herself shares this connection with animals. Though she enjoys the solitude of writing, she couldn't imagine living without the companionship of her two dogs.

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