Linda Sue Park is a beloved and award-winning children’s novelist and poet.
Park’s parents immigrated from Korea and she was born and raised in Illinois. Of her childhood, she said, “My dad was determined to have an American life, so I grew up feeling completely American. I did visit Korea, though, when I was about 11. It didn't leave much of an impression on me at the time, but now my travels help me set the scene for my books.” She was a self-described “maniacal” reader as a child, a fan of nearly every genre.
Park began publishing her poems in periodicals when she was in elementary school (her first was when she was nine years old!), continuing to do so in high school. At Stanford...