Anne Ylvisaker is the author of Little Klein and Dear Papa, a 2002 Top Ten Youth First Novel, both from Candlewick Press. In 2005 Anne was awarded the McKnight Artist Fellowship/Loft Award in Children’s Literature. She has a master’s degree in education.

Anne grew up near the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Until 2006, she spent her adult life just across the river in Saint Paul, teaching and writing.

Anne now lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with her husband Dan and daughter Maria.

Little Klein
Candlewick Press, 2007
ages 9 to 12, ISBN 978-0763633592

A boy and his loyal dog roam freely and make mischief in a compelling portrait of a spirited family in bygone America.

Born Harold Sylvester George Klein, Little Klein can’t seem to measure up to the "Bigs." His older brothers are a boisterous gang held together by the bustling, bighearted Mother Klein. Try as he might to stand tall and be heard above the din, Harold often feels little and left out—until one day when a stray named LeRoy answers his whistle and the two become inseparable, with LeRoy’s nose leading them from one adventure to the next. Join a cast of colorful characters in a rural river town circa 1949 where boys wrestle and fish, swipe pies, brave perilous waters on homemade rafts—and sometimes quietly become heroes.

Dear Papa
Candlewick Press, 2002
ages 9 to 12, ISBN 978-0-7636-1618-2

"Dear Papa, Mama got a job! I hope you don't turn over in your grave like she says. We all tried to eat a little less but that doesn't pay the electric bill, she says. It was expensive for you to go to the hospital, and then to be buried besides really added up. (Not that we blame you!)"

Nine-year-old Isabelle and her class are learning how to write letters, and it's a good thing, too—for she has a lot to write to Papa about after he dies. First of all, her cat ran away; then her older sisters, Irma and Inez, both got boyfriends; little Ida hardly remembers Papa at all; and brother Ian is just plain mad to be left with a house full of females. As for Mama, ever since she sold Papa's filling station and got a job cleaning houses, she's always tired with a capital "T."

But there's something much worse: Mama's family wants her to ship Isabelle off to live with her none-too-favorite aunt and uncle, to help lighten the load for Mama at home. Now who will be there to stop little Ida from calling Mama's new boss "Papa"?