Laurie Halse Anderson

Essay by DavidzaprudskiyJunior High, 9th grade December 2009

download word file, 4 pages 1.0

Laurie Halse Anderson is a famous writer, who is mainly writing for teenagers and kids. She wrote many books, and received many awards for them. For her plots she’s tried to understand the hard life of teenagers, and sometimes kids to help them, by showing the problems and the way they can deal with them in her books. Like many famous people, she has a rather interesting life that is reflected in her books in a literary way. This essay is going to talk about her life, her family, and her work.

Laurie Halse Anderson was born on October 23, 1961 in Potsdam, a place in Northern New York State. She was the daughter of Rev. Frank Halse and Joyce Holcomb Halse, and had a sister named Lisa. She was born Laurie Beth Halse. Her second grade teacher taught her writing during a haiku lesson. She read all the time.

Historical fiction was her favourite when she was little, and as a teenager she loved science fiction and fantasy. She was awful at math, bad at chemistry, and so-so in biology. Well, this does not mean that anybody good in literature and bad in all other subjects will become famous writers one day. Anyhow this was exactly Laurie’s case. Let’s see how it happened to her. Despite the haiku, Laurie didn’t think she would be a writer, but a doctor. Throughout all her school years, she remained absolutely fascinated by foreign cultures and languages, and she put an effort to experience those in her real life. She lived as an exchange student on a pig farm in Denmark for thirteen months. She came home and worked for minimum wage at a clothing store, which quickly convinced her to go to college. She attended Onondaga Community College to graduate in two...