Donna grew up in central California surrounded by agricultural and oil fields. As a child, rather than dealing with the regular dust devils, she preferred spending recess squirreled away in the janitor’s closet with a good book. Her favorite hobbies were calling dial-a-story over and over again, and sneaking into a restricted cemetery to weave her own spooky tales using the crumbling headstones as inspiration. Donna’s Middle Grade and Picture Books are about kids who find themselves in odd or scary situations. From language to cultural differences, biracial life can become…complicated. So like Donna, her characters tackle more than just the bizarre things that happen to them in their lives. Donna lives in Washington State with her family, three dogs and two frogs. Her debut novel Lupe Wong Won’t Dance won a Pura Belpré Honor and the Sid Fleischman Award 2020. Her second novel The Last Cuentista won the 2022 Newbery Medal and the 2022 Pura Belpré Author Award.
Author Interaction | NLF Reading Challenge 2022