As a kid growing up in Chicago, Illinois in the 1940s, I loved to write; especially poems that rhymed. I think I was influenced by the book, A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson that my mother bought for me. I read that book so much I eventually memorized most of the poems. A wonderful accomplishment, I thought, until my mother had me recite them to everyone who came to visit. There was another book that meant a lot to me. There used to be a storyteller on the radio named Malcolm Claire. He called himself "Uncle Mal," and I loved listening to his stories. Then one day my mother came home with a package for me from Marshall Field's. It was the book, Tune-in-Tales, written by Malcolm Claire. And inside was an inscription: "To Charlotte from Uncle Mal." I was thrilled. And I thought, Wow! He knows me! I read those stories over and over again. I still have that book today. I wrote my way through high school and college, married and became a teacher. And it was while I was teaching that the idea of becoming an author of children's books came to me. I enjoyed reading to the students in my classes. And they enjoyed listening. We read in the morning, we read in the afternoon. (Sometimes I even managed to squeeze in a little science and math.) After a while I found that I was reading more to myself than to the kids. And I thought, Hey, I can do this! I can write a children's book! After several years of writing, sending stories to publishers and getting rejection letters, my first book, String Bean came out. Oh happy day. That day was thirty-two years ago. And now with four children, eight grandchildren, and twenty-one published books, I'm still writing. And I hope to continue doing so for a long, long time.