Sherry Garland
Author of A Line in the Sand: The Alamo Diary of Lucinda Lawrence, Gonzales, Texas, 1836
About the Author
Works by Sherry Garland
A Line in the Sand: The Alamo Diary of Lucinda Lawrence, Gonzales, Texas, 1836 (1998) 1,238 copies, 8 reviews
Valley of the Moon: The Diary Of Maria Rosalia de Milagros, Sonoma Valley, Alta California, 1846 (2001) 555 copies, 10 reviews
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1948-07-24
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Texas, USA
- Places of residence
- Arlington, Texas, USA
- Education
- University of Texas, Arlington
- Occupations
- young adult writer
children's book author
public speaker - Short biography
- Sherry Garland is a fifth-generation Texan born to a tenant farming family in the Rio Grande Valley. She went to elementary school in the small town of Weatherford, Texas before the family moved to Arlington, where she went to high school. She graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Arlington and completed graduate school courses there. She began her literary career by entering and winning a writing contest in high school. After writing novels for adults, she switched to writing for children and teens in 1988. She says she often gets her material from personal experiences, real events, or historical subjects.
She has produced more than 30 books, three of which were bestsellers; one was adapted into an HBO television film. She has won many awards and honors, including the Western Writers of America Spur Award, Texas Institute of Letters Award, RWA Rita Award, and Parents Choice. She speaks to school groups across Texas and the USA, and has traveled to Asia several times to speak at international schools.
Members
Reviews
This story follows a Vietnamese woman from childhood to old age as she carries a lotus seed that she took from the imperial gardens the day the Vietnamese emperor gave up his throne. She carries it all the way through the Vietnam War, and then again on a refugee boat to America. She safeguards the seed for many years until eventually one of her grandsons finds the seed, takes it, and plants it in her garden. At first she is distraught because she no longer has the seed that reminds her of her childhood home. But then the lotus blooms in her garden, and she tells her grandchildren her story, and gives them all a seed from the lotus pod from her garden to remember it by. This story has a nice underlying theme of home and accepting change as inevitable, and also of letting go of the past. The idea that heritage should be cultivated and shared instead of guarded and kept away is good for children to have, they often neglect to find the stories of their elders until it is too late.… (more)
The grandma saw the emperor crying and he gave her a lotus seed that she passed down for generations.
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Statistics
- Works
- 28
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 4,068
- Popularity
- #6,184
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 60
- ISBNs
- 84
-Kirkus Review… (more)