Paula Danziger
Paula Danziger was an influential American author known for her contributions to children's and young adult literature. Born on August 18, 1944, in Washington, D.C., she spent her childhood in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where her early experiences fueled her creative imagination. Danziger pursued an English major at Montclair State College and began her writing journey after facing personal challenges, including two car accidents that prompted her to explore her emotions through storytelling. Her debut novel, *The Cat Ate My Gymsuit* (1974), introduced readers to relatable themes of adolescence, rebellion, and self-acceptance, resonating particularly with young audiences despite mixed reactions from critics.
Over her career, Danziger published twenty-five books, including the beloved *Amber Brown* series, and earned recognition for her ability to address serious topics in an accessible way. Her work has been translated into ten languages, and several of her titles have received awards, highlighting her impact on young readers. Danziger's writing combined humor and authenticity, allowing children to see themselves in her characters. She passed away on July 8, 2004, but remains celebrated as one of the leading authors in the landscape of late twentieth and early twenty-first-century young adult literature.
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Paula Danziger
Author
- Born: August 18, 1944
- Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
- Died: July 8, 2004
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Paula Danziger was born on August 18, 1944, in Washington, D.C., but spent many years of her childhood in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania, and then in New Jersey. Her father was Samuel Danziger, a garment worker, and her mother was Carolyn Seigel Danziger, a nurse. Paula was an imaginative child, engaged with a series of invisible playmates, and from second grade on she knew that she wanted to become a writer. She read voraciously and befriended the public librarian. Her parents wanted her to have a more conventional and steady life, and for years she tried to please them by working as a babysitter, officer worker, package wrapper, and substitute teacher. She majored in English at Montclair State College and edited the campus humor magazine, but in subjects she was not interested in she earned poor grades.
After graduation in 1967, she found that the life of a substitute teacher—and then as a junior high school English teacher—had its ups and downs: she liked working with the students, but she was unable to follow the rules and behave with the expected decorum. After being in two car accidents in one week, she quit teaching for a while and earned a master’s degree in reading at Montclair, and she began her writing career. Her first novel, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit (1974), was written as part of the therapy she underwent after her car accidents. Danziger brought new pages of the first draft to her therapist to discuss her character’s (and her own) anger toward her parents and feelings of inadequacy and fear. The book, about an overweight adolescent named Marcy, was loved by children more than by the critics and teachers, some of whom found it too negative. Danziger, however, found that writing about “outlaw” children who rebelled against the rules and gave up trying to please everyone else was satisfying, and that children responded to these serious themes.
Danziger returned to teaching for the 1977-1978 school year, then quit to become a full-time writer in New York City. Writing full time gave her freedom to travel, and she visited more than a dozen countries and almost every state in the United States, often meeting her readers and talking about books. She spent part of each year in London, where she appeared on a children’s program on television, and in Woodstock, New York, where she took acting lessons. During her career, she published twenty-five books, including the popular Amber Brown series. She died on July 8, 2004, following a heart attack.
Danziger is one of the most popular and celebrated authors for young adults in the United States of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Many of her books—including The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and The Pistachio Prescription (1978)—have won awards. Five of her novels have been named Children’s Choice books by the International Reading Association and the Children’s Book Council. Her work has been translated into ten languages.