About Candice Ransom

     After writing her first book in second grade, Candice has published 100 books for children and young adults.

     Her work includes picture books, easy readers, middle grade fiction, biographies, and nonfiction. More than 45 of her titles have been translated into 12 languages.

     Among her popular titles are the award-winning Liberty Street, The Promise Quilt, The Big Green Pocketbook, Robert E. Lee, Willie McLean and the Civil War Surrender, Rescue on the Outer Banks, and Children of the Civil War. She also wrote 18 of the Boxcar Children mystery series.

     Candice's books have been named the Hodge-Podge Society Best Children's Book, Pick of the List, Notable Trade Book in Social Studies, New York times Ten Best Illustrated Book, New York Public Library Best 100 Book, School Library Journal Starred Review, Best Science Book for Children, Book-of-the-Month Club selection, IRA/Children's Choice, ALA Recommended Book for Reluctant Readers, B. Dalton Bestseller, and numerous state reading lists.

     She is an accomplished speaker and has delivered keynote addresses at many reading council conferences, library conferences, and writer's conferences. She regularly travels to schools to talk about her books.

     Candice is a faculty member at the brief-residency MFA in Writing program at Spalding University. She has a Masters in Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College. Currently, she is earning her Masters in Children’s Literature from Hollins University.

     Candice and her husband Frank live in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with their cats, Xenia, Mulan, Winchester, and Persnickety.

  Why I Write Children's Books

   When I was ten and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I confidently replied, "writer-detective-vet-artist." Secretly, I really wanted to be a ballet dancer. But I lived in the country, where dance lessons might as well have been held on the moon.

    While other kids played sports, I slopped hogs and swatted gnats in our hot, buggy garden. I hiked in our woods and could name every bird by its song and each tree by its bark, yet I was feverishly jealous of my town cousins, who didn't have to slop hogs and who had sidewalks to ride bikes on.

    Out of desperation, I wrote my first book at age seven. I had read all the books on the second-grade shelves in our tiny school library. One day on the bus ride home, I took out a sheet of paper and wrote the immortal line, "It was dark," thus launching my career as a writer.

  I scribbled in my spare time and even when I was supposed to be doing school work. In my books, I was the hero because I wanted to have adventures and solve mysteries, always in short supply in Centreville, Virginia.

    I gobbled mystery stories like potato chips. One of my fondest memories was the time I bought a new Trixie Beldon  mystery (59 cents!), then went to McDonalds, a rare treat. Back then you had to eat in the car. I watched the young man put five splats of mustard and ketchup on my hamburger with a clever device, then settled down happily to read.

    Like Trixie Beldon, I craved to be in a club with a close band of friends. I began a zillion clubs of which I was president, with one or two members who were forever defecting because I was bossy. The  mysteries I made up for my cousins were obvious and transparent. It was hard running a detective agency in the sticks!

    As time passed, I realized I couldn't stand the sight of blood, so I wouldn't be a vet. Detectives kept late hours on stake-outs and I needed my beauty sleep. Art was okay, but I liked writing best.

    And so I became a writer of children's books--not an easy decision since I believed all children's writers were dead. By now I was a teenager and still frequenting the children's room in the public library, drawing dirty looks from kids who thought I should be in my own section. My high school English teacher assured me that not only were those books written by living people, but I could do it, too.

    And so I did, because I loved children's stories and because my relatives told my mother I wouldn't amount to anything. This prediction sprang from the fact I couldn't tie my shoes or roller skate until I was 12 (let them try roller skating in a field!) and because I carried around a grubby, stuffed elephant long past the age where it was okay to play with baby toys.

    Today the stuffed elephant sits on my desk. My faithful companion is 51 years old--I'm a few years older. Like my elephant, I've lost some of my stuffing and my fur (hair) is thinner. But we showed 'em. I've written more than 100 books for children and I can tie my shoes!

    Every day I get up early, feed my husband and the cats (not the same things), then hit the computer. Sometimes literally. Like going to school, writing is hard. Besides work, I take Jazzercise classes and have recently begun horseback riding lessons. I also enjoy scrapbooking.

    Many of my books are set in Virginia, where my family has lived for many generations.  As a kid I loved the country (except for the gnats), and I loved to hear my relatives talk about their childhoods in the haunting Blue Ridge Mountains, the lush Shenandoah Valley, and the historic Piedmont.

    Today I make my home in Fredericksburg. It's a privilege to walk the same streets where Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and George Washington thought their mighty thoughts. My thoughts aren't nearly as lofty, but I hope my stories are lively.

    I'll be a writer forever because it's fun, it pays the bills, and I can't do anything else. (George Washington couldn't roller skate, either!)