Helaine Becker - Author

Helaine Becker is the bestselling author of more than 80 books for children and young adults, including the enduring Canadian Christmas classic A Porcupine in a Pine Tree and the international bestseller Counting on Katherine. She's a multi-time winner of the Silver Birch Award and a two-time winner of the Lane Anderson Award for science writing for children. She has had three nonfiction titles recognized by the Junior Library Guild, and her book Lines, Bars and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs was selected as a Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year.

Helaine also writes for children's television, and is in high demand as a performer at schools and festivals across North America. She has toured three times for TD Canadian Children's Book Week and has been a featured speaker at the World Science Festival in NY, the Vancouver Writers Festival, the Tucson Festival of Books, the Frye Festival in New Brunswick, ALOUD: a Celebration for Young Readers in Toronto, the Weaving Words Festival, the Literacy for Life Conference and the Orange County Children's Book Festival in California. She annually speaks to thousands of kids at schools and libraries all over the world, inspiring children to discover the superpower of literacy for themselves.

A New York native, Helaine has lived happily in Toronto for more than 20 years. She shares her home with her husband and a werewolf named Ella. (Her two grown sons, wisely, live elsewhere.) Helaine volunteers for several literacy organizations and charities, including First Book, ABC Literacy, CODE and Librarians Without Borders. She is also a certified pyrotechnician, so --- KABOOM! --- expect fireworks at any time.
Twitter: @helainebecker