An interview with Amy Gordon, teacher and author of children's books:

What are your first memories?

I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but my first memory is of flying over the ocean. I remember looking out of the airplane window and I remember sitting in my mother's lap. We were flying to France where we lived the first few years of my life.

My first real memories, though, are set in London, where we lived next. I remember the London fog enveloping everything in mystery; I remember a climbing tree in the yard; I remember my sister stuffing me into a dark and terrifying little elevator that was used to bring food up from the kitchen. (It was called a dumb waiter and it was attached to pulleys and a rope.) I remember someone telling me if I swallowed gum it would stay in my stomach forever. (This was right after I swallowed some gum.)

Where did you spend your early years?

When I was six, we moved back to a suburb outside of Boston. We lived on a hill, in a neighborhood full of kids, and we all walked up through the woods to school. It was an enchanted childhood, carefree and unconscious, lived largely out of doors; we played Spud on the grassy common, hide and go seek in the woods, rode our bikes endlessly—(mostly pretending they were horses—those were the days of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone) skated on frozen ponds. We rambled, wild and free.

Summertime was spent on a lake in New Hampshire with cousins, where except for sailing lessons, we also rambled, wild and free.

What was school like for you?

School wasn't really work—we wrote stories, put on plays—we liked our teachers, and they liked us.

After sixth grade, I went to a new school. It had long, dark corridors and it always seemed to be raining. The teachers were strict and there was a lot of homework, but it was one of those strict teachers who taught me to become a better thinker, writer, and reader.

After that year, my family moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was a big move in many ways: from childhood to adolescence; from a home where I made my own bed to a home with many servants; from a proper all-girls' school to a huge, public-school style school with all sorts of kids from all sorts of countries. Rio was exotic and romantic, as different as could be from New England.

After two years, I was sent back to the United States for a more serious education at a girls' boarding school. I went there for five years—five years of a blue uniform skirt, a white blouse, sensible shoes, and crazy housemothers. In the fall of my first year, John F. Kennedy was shot; in the spring of my last year, Bobby Kennedy was shot.

I went to Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York during the turbulent years of the late '60s and early '70s.

When did you first begin writing?

During those years, I discovered I could get people to pay attention to me through the written word—I come from a family of talkers, and as the youngest I sometimes felt ignored—so I figured out I could be noticed by writing funny things for Christmas presents. Everything would stop as my father read aloud what I'd written. It was very satisfying!

What do you do when you're not writing?

After graduating, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Eventually, I found my way to teaching; I was a camp counselor for many years, and knew that I loved working with kids. Now I teach drama and put on plays with kids and write as much as I can between teaching and raising my two sons, Nick and Hickory (who are now pretty grown up).

Amy Gordon is published by Holiday House,
publishers of children's books since 1935.