Paul Fleischman

Fleischman was born in Monterey, California. He’s the son of Sid Fleischman, who is also a renowned children’s author. Both of Paul’s parents inspired Seedfolks: his father because he kept a hobby garden to take breaks from writing, and his mother because she volunteered in immigrant communities as well as community and therapeutic gardens. When Fleischman was 19, he bicycled cross-country and spent several years living in an 18th-century house in New Hampshire, an experience that influenced many of his historical fiction novels. He then went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of New Mexico. Fleischman wrote his first novels while he was still in college, though it was the books he wrote in the 1980s that earned him major accolades. He won the 1989 Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices. This is one of several of Fleischman’s novels that reflects his love of music; he’s said that as a child, he wanted to write music for orchestras rather than write books. Like Joyful Noise, booth I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices and Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices are intended to be read out loud by multiple readers. Several of his other novels, including Seedfolks, have been adapted into plays. Fleischman has two sons and a stepdaughter, and he lives in his hometown of Monterey, California, with his wife.