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Franny Billingsley

Born:
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Billingsley graduated from University of Chicago High School and currently resides in Lake Forest.

Biography: Franny Billingsley graduated from Tufts University in 1976 and from Boston University Law School in 1979. After moving back to Chicago, she wrote for many years while working at 57th Street Books in Hyde Park until 1999. She is now an award-winning author of children's books and fantasy novels for young adults.


Awards:
  • "Well Wished"
  • -- Anne Spencer Lindbergh Prize Honor Book for best fantasy written in the English language, 1998
  • "The Folk Keeper"
  • -- Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction
  • -- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature, 2000
  • -- Booklist Top Ten First Novels for Youth
  • -- Anne Spencer Lindbergh Prize honor book, (best fantasy written in the English Language) 1997-8
  • -- School Library Journal Sleeper: 100 Books Too Good to Miss
  • -- Best of the Best 1997, Stories for Older Readers, Chicago Public Library
  • -- Utah Children’s Book Award, 2000-2001
  • -- Starred Review, Publishers Weekly
  • -- Starred Review, Booklist
  • -- Starred Review, School Library Journal
  • "Chime"
  • -- Finalist, National Book Award for Young People's Literature, 2011
  • -- Illinois Reads Book Selection, Illinois Reading Council, 2014
  • "Well-Wished"
  • -- Booklist Top Ten First Novels for Youth
  • -- Anne Spencer Lindbergh Prize honor book, (best fantasy written in the English Language) 1997-8
  • -- School Library Journal Sleeper: 100 Books Too Good to Miss
  • -- Best of the Best 1997, Stories for Older Readers, Chicago Public Library
  • -- Utah Children’s Book Award, 2000-2001
  • "The Robber Girl"
  • -- Illinois Reads Book Selection, Illinois Reading Council, 2022

Primary Literary Genre(s): C:CHILDREN; C:YOUNG ADULT; Fiction

E-Mail: frannybillingsley@gmail.com
Website: http://www.frannybillingsley.com/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franny_Billingsley


Selected Titles

Big Bad Bunny /
ISBN: 1416906010 OCLC: 74964188

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York : 2008.

When Baby Boo-Boo, a mouse dressed in a bunny suit, becomes lost in the forest, his mother follows the sound of his cries to locate him.

Chime /
ISBN: 0803735529 OCLC: 535490686

Dial Books, New York : ©2011.

In the early twentieth century in Swampsea, seventeen-year-old Briony, who can see the spirits that haunt the marshes around their town, feels responsible for her twin sister's horrible injury until a young man enters their lives and exposes secrets that even Briony does not know about.

ROBBER GIRL.
ISBN: 0763669563 OCLC: 1232147892

Part literary mystery, part magical tour de force—an incantatory novel of fierce beauty, lyricism, and originality from a National Book Award Finalist A brilliant puzzle of a book from the author of Chime and The Folk Keeper plunges us into the vulnerable psyche of one of the most memorable unreliable narrators to grace the page in decades. The Robber Girl has a good dagger. Its voice in her head is as sharp as its two edges that taper down to a point. Today, the Robber Girl and her dagger will ride with Gentleman Jack into the Indigo Heart to claim the gold that’s rightfully his. But instead of gold, the Robber Girl finds a dollhouse cottage with doorknobs the size of apple seeds. She finds two dolls who give her three tasks, even though she knows that three is too many tasks. The right number of tasks is two, like Grandmother gave to Gentleman Jack: Fetch unto me the mountain’s gold, to build our city fair. Fetch unto me the wingless bird, and I shall make you my heir. The Robber Girl finds what might be a home, but to fight is easier than to trust when you’re a mystery even to yourself and you’re torn between loyalty and love. The Robber Girl is at once achingly real—wise to the nuances of trauma—and loaded with magic, action, and intrigue. Every sentence shines, sharp as a blade, in a beautifully crafted novel about memory, identity, and the power of language to heal and reconstruct our lives.

The Folk Keeper /
ISBN: 0689844611 OCLC: 48076101

Orphaned Corinna disguises herself as a boy to pose as a Folk Keeper, one who keeps the Evil Folk at bay, and discovers her heritage as a seal maiden when she is taken to live with a wealthy family in their manor by the sea.

Well wished /
ISBN: 0689832559 OCLC: 34886335

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York : ©1997.

In a time of dire need, eleven-year-old Nuria tries to outwit the magical wishing well in her mysterious mountain village.

 

 

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