Deborah Wiles
raconteur, cake baker, weed puller, orchard tender, history geek, voter, citizen.
Deborah Wiles is a two-time National Book Award finalist, winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award, the PEN Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Working Writer Fellowship, an NAACP Book Award finalist, Jane Addams Peace Award finalist, E.B. White Award winner, Golden Kite Award winner, and a purveyor of fine vowels. You can find out more about her here. Scroll down for a look at books; click through on any title for more info. Welcome!
The Aurora County Books
A fictional Mississippi town full of lovable characters who have no idea how eccentric they are.
Love, Ruby Lavender
A girl, a grandmother, three “rescued” chickens. What could go wrong?
Each Little Bird That Sings
“Open your arms to life! Let it strut into your heart in all its messy glory!”
The Aurora County All-Stars
“The first rule of baseball is: NO GIRLS.”
A Long Line of Cakes
“There is so much need in the world, after all, and cake is one simple way to soothe it.”
The Sixties Trilogy
Fiction, biography, and scrapbooks with photographs and primary-source non-fiction in a groundbreaking new format: the documentary novel.
COUNTDOWN
1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis comes home to Franny Chapman and her family in Washington, D.C.
REVOLUTION
1964. Freedom Summer volunteers “invade” Sunny Fairchild’s Mississippi hometown.
ANTHEM
1969. Molly and Norman journey from Charleston, SC to San Francisco in a beat-up schoolbus to find Molly’s brother, who has been drafted. Along the way they discover America.
“I don’t ever write authors. But my 7th grade students and I have just finished reading Revolution, and for the first time in my 9 years as an educator, I cried with my students.”
– a teacher, about Revolution
“I teach in a predominately white southern small town in North Carolina. Most of our kids live in ignorance of the racism that still runs through our community. It’s not overt nor violent, but it is still here, as it is everywhere. They are so much like Sunny. Watching her grow helped awaken my students to their own privilege, and has made them ask so many important questions.”
– a reader and teacher, about Revolution
“I found your session so inspiring, and haven’t been able to stop thinking about writing since! Your books Countdown and Revolution had me in awe. I had never seen children’s books with such a creative and innovative layout. A documentary novel… who would have thought? I simply wanted to take a moment to thank you; thank you for your story, your knowledge, your humor, and your candidness.”
– a conference attendee and teacher