Elaine Moore

When Elaine Moore was in the seventh grade, her mother gave her the worst job in the world--babysitting her younger sister. What Elaine eventually discovered was that she could keep her sister completely under control by writing exciting stories wich she would read aloud on Friday nights-but only if her sister had been very good to her for a whole entire week. Such power Elaine discovered as her sister cleaned her room, picked up her laundry, and even paid her with Oreo cookies.

Having found her audience in the seventh grade, Elaine Moore is now a prolific author who writes for children ages two through twelve. Because she wears a purple hat while writing (to ward off distraction and signal her family that she's working and not to be disturbed) she's often referred to as the lady with the purple writer's hat. She lives with her husband, Mike, and dogs, Jessie and Max, in Great Falls, Virginia. When not writing or visiting schools or conventions, Elaine loves to relax with her daughters, their husbands, and her grandson, Ryan.

As a child Elaine was profoundly affected by the deep love of her maternal grandmother. It was this love that sparked the award-winning picture book Grandma's House, the first in Lothrop's series about Grandma and Kim. Just as in this book, Elaine's grandmother had a wooden porch with a green wooden table where she set her glass of water before plaiting Elaine's hair in a way that didn't pull and didn't hurt.

By the time Elaine began writing the sequels, the grandmother in the book had become independent of her own grandmother. Even though Elaine tends to be a private person, as with most authors, many events in her life find their way into print. The ice "licked smooth by the wind" in Grandma 's Promise was inspired by an outdoor ice rink where Elaine's daughter practiced figure skating. In the same way that Grandma saved the plums for Kim in Grandma's Garden, Elaine's father saved plums for her daughter, Devon. And it was Elaine's daughter, Amy, who didn't want to change her pumpkin into a jack-o'-lantern (Grandma's Smile).

When Elaine speaks to children and adults about her love of read-Ing and joy of writing, she likes to tell them how she always wrote. When she was four, she used a paintbrush, then crayons, and on to fat pencils, skinny pencils, fountain pens, ballpoints, typewriters. Now she uses a computer. But even considering the various tools, Elaine always strives touse the same two things: her brain and her heart. That's where the good stories come from she says--the brain and the heart.