Susan Marie Swanson is a poet and picture book author fascinated by the place where her understandings about poetry, children’s own writing, the lives of children, and children’s literature converge.

Growing up in a small town on the edge of the Chicago area, Susan Marie loved visiting the public library and the bookstore. Both were within walking distance of her house, her school, and a bakery with really good sweet rolls. Her first publication was a poem about snowflakes, published in the weekly town newspaper when she was ten years old.

Besides writing poetry and picture books for children, Susan Marie has been writing poetry with children for more than 25 years, teaching in the COMPAS Writers and Artists in the Schools program and in summer arts programs at St. Paul Academy and the Friends School of Minnesota. Her awards include fellowships in poetry from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board, as well as the McKnight Artist Fellowship in Children’s Literature.

Susan Marie lives with her family in a St. Paul neighborhood known for its small-town feel, within walking distance of a branch library, an independent bookstore, and a bakery with really good sweet rolls.

The House in the Night
illustrated by Beth Krommes
Houghton Mifflin, 2008
ages 2 to 8, ISBN 978-061886244

Here is the key to the house.
In the house burns a light.
In that light rests a bed.
On that bed waits a book...

A spare, patterned text and glowing pictures explore the origins of light that make a house a home. Naming nighttime things that are both comforting and intriguing—a key, a bed, the moon—this timeless book illuminates a reassuring order to the universe.

Awards and Honors
Caldecott Medal, 2009; Minnesota Book Award, 2009; Junior Library Guild Premiere Selection; Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Books; Publishers Weekly Best Books; Parents' Choice; New York Public Library Titles for Reading and Sharing; AARP Book for Grandparents; starred reviews in Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal; Booklist Top of the List 2008

To Be Like the Sun
illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine
Harcourt, 2008
ages 3 to 9, ISBN 978-0152057961

Within every tiny seed lies the secret of what's to come. First a shoot, then a stem, a leaf, a bud—and finally a brilliant sunflower reaching high for the sun. Join a young girl as she waters and watches, celebrating the everyday miracles of growth and life.

Awards and Honors
Kirkus Reviews starred review; Nancy Pearl's Picks

The First Thing My Mama Told Me
illustrated by Christine Davenier
Harcourt, 2002
ages 3 to 8, ISBN 978-0-15-201075-1

Reading Guide available from Minnesota Storytime

When I was born
the first thing my mama told me
was my name.
Mama says she told everyone
who I was,
and she wrote my name
everywhere.

"The voice in this is childlike, yet often poetic, and always true to a young child's experience. The author's choice of details helps enrich our view of the narrator's expanding world. . . . There's a lovely sense of the possible, of discovery and validation in this text."

—McKnight Artist Fellowship award citation
from judge Melanie Kroupa

Awards and Honors
2003 Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book; a New York Times Best Illustrated Book

This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort
poems by 18 writers selected by Georgia Heard
Candlewick Press, 2002
all ages, ISBN 978-0-7636-2875-8

Trouble, fly
out of our house.
We left the window
open for you.

Susan Marie's poem "Trouble, Fly," with an illustration by Elisa Kleven, is in this anthology compiled by Georgia Heard out of her experience gathering poems for New York schoolchildren after the events of September 11.

Northern Lights
selected Works from the COMPAS Writers
and Artists in the Schools Program
edited by Susan Marie Swanson
illustrated by Marie Olofsdotter
COMPAS Writers and Artists in the Schools, 2001
ISBN 978-0-927663-36-6

"COMPAS has a wonderfully concise mission statement: 'COMPAS strengthens people and communities in Minnesota by engaging them in creating art.' Living in a society saturated with media messages and images, we need the special kind of strength that imaginative writing offers. The tools for writing are simple: all you need is a pencil and a piece of paper—and to be open to the possibilities of language. To explore the world with words, to make something beautiful, to articulate pain—these are very special kinds of strength."

—from the Introduction

Susan Marie edited and wrote the introduction for this edition of the annual anthology of student writing published by the writers-in-the-schools program that has taken her into schools around Minnesota.

Letter to the Lake
illustrated by Peter Catalanotto
Richard Jackson/DK, 1998
ages 4 to 9, ISBN 978-0-7894-2483-9
at your library

Dear Lake,

When I think of you, I think of rocks hiding under the waves, like secrets. Remember me, your friend Rosie? Remember me?

"The child's poetic voice captures the loving relationship between mother and daughter and her delight in nature in its solemn winter guise and summery lushness. . . . Rosie's ability to nurture her spirit and see the continuity in the natural world gives young readers a realistic model of hope and resiliency."

Getting Used to the Dark: 26 Night Poems
illustrated by Peter Catalanotto
Richard Jackson/DK, 1997
ages 6 to 14, ISBN 978-0-7894-2468-6
at your library

I decided to write a poem
about getting used to the dark.
I clicked off the light.
. . .
While I was writing,
the paper got lighter
and lighter,
and the words got darker,
until I could see what I know.

"In this collection of free-verse poems, all related to nighttime thoughts and experiences, the poet captures the spirit of childhood. The poems resonated for our students because they, too, listen to night sounds as they try to fall asleep, take inventory of unresolved questions, make sense of their dreams, and get their eyes used to the darkness."

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