Elaine
Marie Alphin
One children’s book author who has won the Virginia State Reading
Association Award is Elaine Marie Alphin. Her first novel, The Ghost Cadet won
for the 1994-1995 school year. The Ghost Cadet was nominated for awards
in thirteen states (http://www.elainemariealphin.com/).
On the Barnes and Noble website, the book is described as being for those
readers ages 8-12.
In The Ghost Cadet, a twelve-year old boy meets the ghost of a
Virginia Military cadet and must help the ghost recover a precious family
heirloom. While Publishers Weekly describes the writing as “too
abrupt to be believable,”
and states that the story line “prevents
this middle-grade novel from taking off,” the School Library Journal reads that “The
story…is one of friendship, trust, caring, and self-discovery,” and that
“Alphin has skillfully woven together fact, fiction, and emotion” (www.barnesandnoble.com).
Alphin was born in San Fransico,
California and after Elementary school, moved with her family to New York City.
The family eventually moved to Houston, where Alphin attended college and later
worked as a journalist. In her website, she recalls that her father, a high
school teacher, and a high school professor inspired and encouraged her to
pursue a writing career. She says that she writes to “make sense out of [her]
life,” writes for children because “[she]
wanted to write to challenge readers to question their assumptions, and [she]
discovered that a lot of grown-ups don't want to question their assumptions,”
and that she enjoys writing ghost stories because she njoys history, explaining,
“Sometimes when you read a textbook, history can seem
kind of dull, because it seems to just be a lot of names and dates. But all
those names were real people, with real problems” (http://www.elainemariealphin.com/).
The following is a list of some other works by Alphin intended for children and young adult readers:
Ghost
Soldier
The
Proving Ground
Tournament
of Time
Dinosaur Hunter
A
Bear for Miguel
Simon
Says
Counterfeit
Son
Time Travel Trap
Picture
Perfect
For more information on Elaine Marie Alphin and her books, visit: