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ABOUT
APRIL
oted
author Roald Dahl helped April Henry take her
first step as a writer. When April was eleven, she sent the famous children's
author a short story about a frog who loved peanut butter. The day he
received it, Dahl had lunch with the editor of an international children's
magazine and read her the story. She contacted April and asked to publish
it.
April's
first book, Circles of Confusion, was short-listed
for the Agatha Award and the Anthony Award, and was nominated for the
Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Award. It was also chosen for the Booksense
76 list, and the Oregonian Book Club, and was a Mystery Guild Editor's
Choice. It has been translated into Japanese and French. Other books
in the Claire Montrose series are Square in the Face,
Heart-Shaped Box, and Buried Diamonds.
The stand-alone
thriller Learning to Fly was April's fourth
book. It was a Booksense pick, got starred reviews in Library Journal
and Booklist, was named one of Library Journal's Best of 2002, and was
a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. It was translated into Dutch,
Japanese, and French.
Shock Point, April’s first young-adult thriller, was published by Putnam in 2006. It was an ALA Quick Pick, a Top 10 Books for Teens nominee, a New York Library’s Books for the Teen Age book, named to the Texas Tayshas list, and a finalist for Philadelphia’s Young Readers Choice Award. Her next young-adult book, Torched, a thriller about a girl who goes undercover in an environmental extremist group, will be published in March 2009.
April lives in Portland, Ore., with her husband and daughter and writes full time. Previous jobs include working in public relations, and as a German translator, cook, housekeeper, hospital admitting clerk, life drawing model, and a brief stint as the girl who jumps out of a cake.
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