Peg Kehret

Margaret Ann Schulze was born on November 11, 1936, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She contracted polio at age 12 in 1949.[1] She had each of the three types of polio: spinal, respiratory, and the least common kind, bulbar. She was paralyzed from the neck down and had a nine-month hospital stay. The experience changed Kehret's life, as she describes in her 1996 memoir Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio.[2] Kehret made a complete recovery, later graduating from Austin High School and then attending the University of Minnesota for one year.[3] In 1955, she married Carl Kehret; they moved to California and adopted two children, Bob and Anne.

In 1970, the Kehrets moved to Washington. Carl died in 2004. Kehret has four grandchildren: Brett, Chelsea, Eric, and Mark. She has a great-grandson, Seth, who also lives in Washington. Kehret currently resides near Mt. Rainier National Park.[4]

Before Kehret began writing children's books, she wrote plays, radio commercials and magazine stories. She has published forty-six works for middle school students, including four children's drama books.[5][3] Some of Kehret's most famous works include Stolen Children, Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, and Runaway Twin.

Peg Kehret's books for young people have earned a wide readership and critical acclaim. Among her many honors are the Pen Center West Award in Children's Literature, the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children's Book Writers and illustrators. Children's Choice Awards from 29 states, the Forest Roberts Playwriting Award, and the Henry Bergh Award from the ASPCA. Many for her books have been selected by the American Library Association for its Recommended Books for Reluctant Readers.[6] In total, her books have won more than fifty state young reader awards.

Kehret's polio memoir received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews,[7] won the 1998 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award, annually determined by a vote of Vermont schoolchildren, and the 1999 Mark Twain Readers Award, a similar annual book award determined by a vote of Missouri schoolchildren in grades 4 to 6. The award recognized four of her books from 1999 to 2012: Abduction!, Runaway Twin, Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, and Stolen Children.

• Interview of Kehret (2010-03-13) at TeenInk
• "Author Peg Kehret: If You Want to Write, Be a Reader" (2016-07-29 by Emily Pyrek) in the La Crosse Tribune
• Something About the Author (1993), vol. 73, p. 113–14
• Something About the Author (2000), vol. 108, p. 130–35

• Official website
• Peg Kehret papers in the Children's Literature Research Collections, University of Minnesota
• Peg Kehret at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Peg Kehret at Library of Congress, with 53 library catalog records