Tornado

by Betsy Cromer Byars (Author) Doron Ben-Ami (Illustrator)

Tornado
When Pete was a young boy, a tornado struck his family farm, and brought with it a doghouse complete with a dog inside! Now another twister is on its way, and as a new family of farmers takes shelter from the howling winds, Pete passes the time with story after story about the amazing dog named Tornado.
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Betsy Cromer Byars
Betsy Byars began her writing career rather late in life. "In all of my school years, . . . not one single teacher ever said to me, 'Perhaps you should consider becoming a writer, '" Byars recalls. "Anyway, I didn't want to be a writer. Writing seemed boring. You sat in a room all day by yourself and typed. If I was going to be a writer at all, I was going to be a foreign correspondent like Claudette Colbert in Arise My Love. I would wear smashing hats, wisecrack with the guys, and have a byline known round the world. My father wanted me to be a mathematician." So Byars set out to become mathematician, but when she couldn't grasp calculus in college, she turned to English. Even then, writing was not on her immediate horizon.

First, she married and started a family. The writing career didn't emerge until she was 28, a mother of two children, and living in a small place she called the barracks apartment, in Urbana, Illinois. She and her husband, Ed, had moved there in 1956 so he could attend graduate school at the University of Illinois. She was bored, had no friends, and so turned to writing to fill her time. Byars started writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post, Look, and other magazines. As her family grew and her children started to read, she began to write books for young people and, fortunately for her readers, discovered that there was more to being a writer than sitting in front of a typewriter.

"Making up stories and characters is so interesting that I'm never bored. Each book has been a different writing experience. It takes me about a year to write a book, but I spend another year thinking about it, polishing it, and making improvements. I always put something of myself intomy books -- something that happened to me. Once a wanderer came by my house and showed me how to brush my teeth with a cherry twig; that went in The House of Wingscopyright (c) 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9780064420631
Lexile Measure
610
Guided Reading Level
O
Publisher
HarperCollins
Publication date
February 04, 2020
Series
Trophy Chapter Books (Paperback)
BISAC categories
JUV002070 - Juvenile Fiction | Animals | Dogs
JUV001000 - Juvenile Fiction | Action & Adventure
JUV045000 - Juvenile Fiction | Readers | Chapter Books
Library of Congress categories
Dogs
Tornadoes
Young Hoosier Book Award
Nominee 2000 - 2000
South Carolina Childrens, Junior and Young Adult Book Award
Winner 1998 - 1999
Black-Eyed Susan Award
Nominee 1998 - 1999
Texas Bluebonnet Award
Winner

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