Valerie Scho Carey was born in Pittsburgh, PA. As a very little girl she remembers having been in love with the hills, bridges, tunnels, rivers, and clanging, rattling streetcars of her birth city. Her family moved to Flint, MI when she was in elementary school. Growing up in Michigan, she spent many happy summer days "up North" on the shores of Lake Huron. One of her favorite recollections is of sitting by a campfire on the beach listening to her father sing and play tunes on his mandolin. "I can still hear in my mind his beautiful, deep voice singing "Ochi Chyornye" (the Russian-Ukrainian song "Dark Eyes") while the flames flickered and the waves lapped at the sand. "One of the greatest joys of my childhood was listening to the stories my mother and father would tell about their own childhoods. I never tired of asking for new stories and hearing old ones repeated." Her own pleasure in storytelling grew from those years of listening. "I began making up and telling stories to entertain my younger sister and neighborhood children." An elementary school teacher encouraged her to write and she began to keep a notebook of poems. One of the earliest was a poem called "The Merry Little Nuthatch" written after watching the bird in the title climb up and down a tree trunk in a neighbor's yard. She continued to read and write poetry throughout high school and college.Valerie graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A and an M.A. in history. Not long after the birth of her second child, she began submitting work for publication. Her first book, HARRIET & WILLIAM & THE TERRIBLE CREATURE was named a "children's book of the year" by a joint committee of the Children's Book Council and International Reading Association. She has published five books for children, among them: TSUGELE'S BROOM, named an American Library Association Notable Book, and THE DEVIL & MOTHER CRUMP, a Parents Choice Gold Award winner and winner of the 1987 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Award for Arnold Lobel's illustrations.Valerie enjoys gardening, reading, and feeding the birds in her backyard. "I've learned from watching birds at the feeders that individual birds have personalities. Some are content to share space and take turns at a feeder. Others are feisty or even quarrelsome. Some small birds will chase off bigger ones, and in the summer, some juveniles will help their parents feed younger siblings that hatched from a later clutch of eggs." She enjoys visiting parklands - Acadia National Park in Maine being a family favorite - and walking trails where she can indulge in her other passion - botanizing. Valerie lives with her husband in Ann Arbor, MI where she divides her time between writing, teaching & docenting at the University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens.