Author of the Jamaica books (Jamaica’s Find, Jamaica and Brianna, Jamaica’s Blue Marker, and others in the series) and other titles for primary grade readers, Juanita Havill, was born in Indiana on May 11th, and grew up in Mount Carmel, Illinois.

She has had books on the Reading Rainbow list and IRA-CBC Children’s Choice list, and was awarded the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award.

Havill speaks about how the character of Jamaica developed as she watched her daughter play with other children in the park. Jamaica books and Havill’s other stories are popular with primary grade readers because the experiences of the characters are so very much like their own.

Havill and her family are currently living in Arizona, where the author teaches writing at Phoenix College and literature at Ottawa University.