01+Author

Patricia Reilly Giff is the author of many children's book, such as __Lily's Crossing__, __Willow Run__ and __Water Street.__ She has won numerous awards, including a Newberry Honor Award for __Lily's Crossing__ and __Pictures of Hollis Woods.__ __Lily's Crossing__ is also a Boston-Globe-Horn Book Honor Book. Patricia Reilly Giff was born in New York in 1935. Even as a young child, she loved reading. Accomanying her passion for reading, was a longing to write. As an adult, Giff decided to become a reading teacher. She stayed in that position for twenty years, until she took up writing. Giff began her career as a writer in a small workplace made of two empty closets. Many of her books are based on real-life situations in her or her childrens' lives and stories her young students would pass around at school. Now 85, Giff has three children and five grandchildren. She and her husband, Jim Giff, live in Connecticut.