Loretta Ellsworth

Loretta Ellsworth has taught middle school Spanish for the past ten years. She also taught at the high school level and worked as a librarian when her children were young. The Shrouding Woman is her first middle-grade novel, published by Henry Holt, and released in 2002. In Search of Mockingbird was published by Henry Holt in 2007. Her latest book is In a Heartbeat, published by Walker in 2010.

In a Heartbeat
Walker & Company, 2010
ages 10 to 14, ISBN 9780802720689

When a small mistake on the ice during a figure skating competition costs 16 year-old Eagan her life, 14 year-old Amelia receives Eagan’s heart. Told in alternating chapters, Eagan must reconcile her strained relationship with her mother to move on while Amelia sorts through the fear, guilt and joy she experiences. When Amelia begins to take on strange new personality traits, she wonders if the heart of her donor is trying to tell her something.

In Search of Mockingbird
Henry Holt & Company, 2007
ages 9 to 16, ISBN 978-0-8050-7236-5

Sometimes the things that need to be discovered aren’t so easily found at home. Erin is certain that this is true in her case. A book is all that connects Erin to her mother, who died when she was a baby. But how much can Erin really learn about her mother from a tattered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird? On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Erin decides it’s finally time to find out. And so begins her bus journey from Minnesota to Alabama in search of Harper Lee, the reclusive author of Mockingbird.

In a novel full of quirky characters, strange coincidences, and on-the-road adventures, Loretta Ellsworth deftly traces a unique voyage of self-discovery.

Honors
Nominated for YALSA's 2007 Teens Top 10 List; New York Public Library’s 2008 Books for the Teen Age List; Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts for 2008

The Shrouding Woman
Henry Holt & Company, 2002
ages 8 to 12, ISBN 978-0-8050-6651-7

It was once common practice for small towns to have a shrouding woman to help put their dead to rest. Still, when eleven-year-old Evie's Aunt Flo-herself a shrouding woman-comes to town, Evie knows little of a shrouding woman's ways and wants nothing to do with this aunt of hers, especially after her own mother's recent death. But as this mysterious woman slowly makes her way into Evie's life, her strong and sensitive presence brings far more than signs of death to a grieving girl's home.

Set in the mid-1800s, this beautifully written story, centered on the little-known practice of shrouding, touches on death and healing with sensitivity and quiet dignity.

Awards
2005 Rebecca Caudill Award Nominee (to be voted upon by Illinois students); Recommended Feminist Book for Youth—part of the Amelia Bloomer Project's 2003 list; CCBC Choices 2003 (the best-of-the-year list chosen by the Cooperative Children's Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin)