Presented by MISSOURI WRITES FOR KIDS!

CONTACT INFORMATION

Vicki Grove
P.O. Box 36
Ionia, MO 65335

PROFILE

Vicki Grove lives in a 100-year-old farmhouse on a few acres of land outside of Ionia, Missouri (pop. 118). Her son and daughter, Michael and J.D., attend college, and her husband Mike is a music teacher and directs a bell choir. They have lots of cats and a goldfish pond teeming with bossy, headstrong goldfish. Sharing the pond with that rambunctious crew is one gentle red-eared turtle, Yertle. Behind the house grow three cherry trees, three apple trees, a corn patch, grape vines, and, on a good year, enough strawberries for Vicki to make a dozen jars of jam.

Vicki has written for magazines ranging from Twilight Zone to Reader’s Digest. She received the 1996 SCBWI Magazine Merit Award for a story in American Girl. Altogether, she’s published about 300 articles and short stories. “Because it’s not such a huge time and energy commitment, writing a short story is kind of like eating popcorn,” she says. “Writing a book, on the other hand, is a big deal, sort of like Thanksgiving dinner. You’d get tired of snacking or feasting if you did it all the time, so I alternate!”

Eight of Vicki’s eleven books are middle grade or young adult novels for Putnam. Her most recent are Rimwalkers, Crystal Garden, Reaching Dustin, The Starplace, and Destiny. Reaching Dustin and The Starplace were School Library Journal Best Books of 1998 and 1999. Destiny will be published in June, 2000.

Vicki writes every day in a tiny white office her dad built in her hayfield. He modeled it on her childhood playhouse, and it has its own birdhouse (where a tree frog named Joop is living). A purple clematis vine snakes up the side of the office, and beneath it grows a white peony bush Vicki transplanted from her grandmother’s farmhouse in Illinois, the setting for Rimwalkers.

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BOOKS AVAILABLE

(Click on Amazon image under book description to order. Books without the Amazon logo can be ordered by clicking on the book's cover.)

THE CRYSTAL GARDEN
Ages 10 and up.

“This novel...tells many truths about adolescents trying to discover their places in the world.” --School Library Journal, starred review.

“A multilayered book with memorable characters and humorous as well as poignant situations.” --Horn Book

Econoclad

Hardcover

Paperback

destiny
DESTINY
Ages 10 and up.

Who can you trust? That’s what Destiny needs to know if she’s going to save her little brother’s pet rabbits from being sold at the auction.

Winner of the 2001 Midland Authors Award for Children's Fiction.

REACHING DUSTIN
Ages 10 and up.

“An interview assignment forces Carly to get to know the most unpopular member of her sixth-grade class.” --School Library Journal, starred review

“A powerful tale of redemption from Grove, written with grace...brimming with compassion...” --Kirkus Reviews, pointer review

RIMWALKERS
Ages 10 and up.

“A beautifully written story...the theme of growth through risk-taking, the saga of family history, a tantalizingly ambiguous ghost story are seamlessly interwoven...A talented novelist, hitting her stride.” --Kirkus Reviews, pointer review

Econoclad

Paperback

THE STARPLACE
Ages 12 and up.

“A wonderful, well-written, multi-layered novel with lots of appeal.” --School Library Journal

“This is a wonderful look at the time just after the Supreme Court decision that was supposed to make segregation history...highly recommended.” --Children’s Literature Review

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LINKS

MISSOURI WRITES FOR KIDS!
is a project of the Drury University Department of Education.

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