Michelle Houts lives on a family farm in West Central Ohio with her three children, the farmer of her dreams, some cattle, a few hogs, a whole lot of barn cats, a few goats and a Great Pyrenees named Hercules. Learn more about Michelle, her work, and farm life at www.michellehouts.com.The Beef Princess of Practical County, 2009, was her first novel for middle grade readers. It won a 2010 International Reading Association Children's Book Award and the 2011 Nebraska Farm Bureau Agricultural Book of the Year for grades 4 and 5.The Practical County Drama Queen, the much-anticipated follow-up to The Beef Princess, was released in the spring of 2014.Winterfrost, a Christmas tale for all ages, was released September 9, 2014 by Candlewick Press. It is Michelle's first Junior Library Guild selection. Michelle's first nonfiction title is Kammie on First: Baseball's Dottie Kamenshek. It is the biography of one the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League's best players. A ten-year first baseman for the Rockford Peaches, Dottie Kamenshek wowed the crowds with her athleticism. Dottie helped inspire Geena Davis's character, Dottie Hinson, in the movie "A League of Their Own."