Creech, Sharon (1945-…), an American author of books for children, became known for her sensitive novels about family relationships. Many of Creech’s characters are teenage girls who experience personal growth as they deal with death and other kinds of grief. Much of Creech’s fiction is based on her own family life.
Creech won the 1995 Newbery Medal, an annual award given to the author of the best children’s book by an American, for Walk Two Moons (1994). The book tells the story of Salamanca Tree Hiddle, a 13-year-old girl of Native American ancestry traveling by automobile from Ohio to Idaho with her grandparents. They are making the trip to visit her mother, who had deserted Sal. Along the way, Sal tells the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also had left home. The trip becomes a spiritual as well as a physical journey for Sal. By the end of the book, she has grown in self-knowledge and understanding.
Creech wrote two novels for adults under her married name, Sharon Rigg—The Recital (1990) and Nickel Malley (1991). Creech’s first novel for children was the partly autobiographical Absolutely Normal Chaos (published in England in 1990 and in the United States in 1995). Her other novels for young people include Pleasing the Ghost (published in England as The Ghost of Uncle Arvie, 1996), Chasing Redbird (1997), Bloomability (1998), The Wanderer (2000), Ruby Holler (2001), Granny Torrelli Makes Soup (2003), Replay (2005), The Great Unexpected (2012), The Boy on the Porch (2013), Moo (2016), and One Time (2020).
Creech wrote the novels in verse Love That Dog (2001) and its sequel, Hate That Cat (2008), and Heartbeat (2004). She wrote the picture books Fishing in the Air (2000), A Fine, Fine School (2001), and The Castle Corona (2007). She also wrote a collection of poem-songs for very young children called Who’s That Baby? (2005).
Creech was born on July 29, 1945, in Cleveland, Ohio. She received a bachelor’s degree from Hiram College in 1967 and a master’s degree from George Mason University in 1978. Creech married Lyle D. Rigg, an American school administrator, in 1982. She taught school in England and Switzerland with Rigg from 1979 until they returned to the United States in 1994.
