MICHAEL J. ROSEN has written, edited, or illustrated more than thirty books for children and adults, including Elijah’s Angel, winner of the National Jewish Book Award; Speak! Children’s Book Illustrators Brag About Their Favorite Dogs; The Heart Is Big Enough: Five Stories; The Dog Who Walked with God; The Cuckoo’s Haiku; The Hound Dog’s Haiku; and The Maine Coon’s Haiku. Additionally, he has worked as literary director at Thurber House, the writers’ center in the restored home of James Thurber. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, he now lives in a forested area of central Ohio.
KYOKO MORI was born in Kobe, Japan. She moved to the United States at the age of twenty, originally to finish her undergraduate college degree. Her books for young adults include One Bird and Shizuko’s Daughter, which was named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, a New York Times Notable Book, and a Publishers Weekly Editors’ Choice. Her most recent books for adults include Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures; Stone Field, True Arrow; and Yarn: Remembering the Way Home. Kyoko Mori currently teaches creative writing at George Mason University.
KAREN HESSE grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and now lives with her family in Vermont. She is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning Out of the Dust, which was also named a Best Book by School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist. Her other books for young readers include Phoenix Rising; Letters from Rifka; The Music of Dolphins, named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and a Best Book by Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal; and A Time of Angels, named an International Reading Association Young Adults’ Choice. In 2006, Karen was selected to receive the Kerlan Award for her contributions to the Children’s Literature Research Collection at the University of Minnesota.
JOSEPH BRUCHAC is an author, storyteller, and editor who has drawn on his Native American heritage throughout his writing career. He has edited more than thirty books and has written more than sixty books of his own, including The Faithful Hunter; the Keepers of the Earth series; The Boy Who Lived with the Bears, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book; Dog People, winner of the Paterson Children’s Writing Award; and Many Nations: An Alphabet of Native America, an International Reading Association Teachers’ Choice. The cofounder of Greenfield Review Press, he lives with his wife in upstate New York.
Amy Ehrlich, the editor of When I Was Your Age, volumes one and two, notes that “writing begins with observation. The authors in this collection, like all children, felt things deeply. But they also were able to observe their feelings and therefore to remember them as well. Those memories are a writer’s most durable tool.” Amy Ehrlich has been an editor and a writing teacher and is the author of more than twenty-five books for young readers. She lives in Vermont.
Introduction copyright © 1999 by Amy Ehrlich
“In the Blink of an Eye” copyright © 1999 by Norma Fox Mazer
“Food from the Outside” copyright © 1999 by Rita Williams-Garcia
“Interview with a Shrimp” copyright © 1999 by Paul Fleischman
“The Long Closet” copyright © 1999 by Jane Yolen
“How I Lost My Station in Life” copyright © 1999 by E. L. Konigsburg
“Bus Problems” copyright © 1999 by Howard Norman
“Pegasus for a Summer” copyright © 1999 by Michael J. Rosen
“Learning to Swim” copyright © 1999 by Kyoko Mori
“Waiting for Midnight” copyright © 1999 by Karen Hesse
“The Snapping Turtle” copyright © 1999 by Joseph Bruchac
Cover photograph copyright © 1999 by Kathleen Williams
Photograph handtinting by Christine Rodin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2015
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 95-4820
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When I Was Your Age, Volume Two Page 12