Patricia Baehr grew up on the last four acres of what had been her immigrant grandfather’s Long Island vegetable farm.  With her uncles living on the first floor of the old farmhouse, Patricia's family crowded into the upstairs, a tiny four-room apartment that encouraged lots of outdoor play.  The second born of four girls, she loved nurturing her younger sisters and strove to keep up with the eldest.

Patricia began writing in the third grade for Miss Flynn, who was known by kids throughout the school as the teacher who didn’t believe in homework.  What Miss Flynn did believe in was literature, and she read to Patricia's class every day, using voices for the different characters.  The pages she shared came alive for Patricia, and that year she discovered not only Winnie the Pooh but a love for creating her own stories.  Miss Flynn collected stories in a drawer in her desk and predicted that someday Patricia would be an author.  Mrs. Beale, the elementary school librarian, introduced Patricia to the likes of Dr. Seuss and Mary Poppins, and Patricia was lucky enough to have an aunt supply her with classics including The Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables.  Books became an important and Patricia's growing up.  When it came time to pick a career direction, however, the idea of earning a living as a writer did not seem practical.  Instead, Patricia earned a degree in Music Education, which allowed her to combine two other loves: music and working with children. Patricia was married, teaching, and working toward a degree in humanities before she ever entertained a serious ambition to be published.  The story she began in a graduate writing class became her first novel, The Way to Windra.

Since that fledgling story, Patricia has had a varied career—as the mother of two children, a proofreader, author of picture books, fantasy and young adult novels, short stories and school enrichment material—and she continues to teach music.

Visit Patricia online here.

Books by Patricia Baehr