Official Website of Ann McGovern, Popular Children’s Book Author
A: A dear friend of mine loved Robin Hood when he was a child. He told me the stories in such an exciting way that I was inspired to write them. I wanted to keep a little bit of the old English, but still be readable for 4th grade readers. It worked!
A: I’ve always loved Shakespeare’s language. I read all his poems and plays. He was a master of insults, so I thought it would be fun to write the best of them for older kids to use. “His face is the worst thing about him” or “I do desire we be better strangers.”
A: My son, Peter, and I went to the circus every year. He asked me so many questions that cried out to be an If You Lived…..book. My favorite question is “Are clowns always funny? A clown’s life isn’t all laughs. The brand-new clowns have to do the worst stunts. A new clown gets smacked … Read more
A: I had been writing books that took almost two years to finsh, I wanted to write a funny book that wouldn’t take so long. This book has funny “limer-eeks” and scary stories like the popular The Velvet Ribbon, magic tricks, games and a wildy funny “Dr. Diabolical” play that you and your friends might … Read more
A: I stayed home from work on Labor Day, a holiday. My son started to ask all sorts of questions about what makes a holiday and their customs. This was my first book, published in 1960, before there were other holidays – Martin Luther King Day, Earth Day, Kwanza. You can find out about these … Read more
A: We had the chance of living on a dive boat in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, for ten days. I saw a huge fish that weighed 300 pounds! One day I was surounded by sea snakes more deadly than cobras. I saw sharks in a feeding frenzy. In this book, I transformed all my … Read more
A: “At night, fish sleep and you can see them up close.” As soon as I heard that, I wanted to try night diving. It’s mysterious and sometimes scary. I wrote the book as a story of a girl who makes a night dive and meets a barracuda hunting for food, sees the strange night … Read more
A: Once I started diving beneath the sea, I was completely awed by the beauties of the reef and the fish and corals that made the reef their home. I wanted to scuba dive all the time. I learned everything about the creatures of the sea – even their Latin scientific names. I wanted to … Read more
A: Dr. Eugenie Clark (The “Shark Lady”) told me fascinating stories about the creatures who live in the sandy bottom of the coral reef – jumping sand grains, the strange razor fish, slinky garden eels. This book also tells you how scientists work, and it’s also the story of our friendship. Eugenie and I made … Read more
In the Caribbean, we heard that a humpback whale and her calf had left their pod and were swimming in the channel. We grabbed our masks, snorkels and fins and went snorkeling for over an hour with the huge whale and her baby. I never felt so small or humble in my life. The whale … Read more