Ann M. Martin

Ann M. Martin (born 12 August 1955) is an American children's author who created The Baby-Sitters Club, a Scholastic series that ran from 1986 to 2000 and has sold more than 190 million copies.

Ann Matthews Martin was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and studied early-childhood education and child psychology at Smith College from 1973 to 1977. After teaching a combined fourth and fifth grade class in Connecticut, she worked in children's publishing, rising from editorial assistant to senior editor at houses including Pocket Books and Scholastic. Her first book, Bummer Summer (1983), won a Children's Choice Award in 1985.

She began The Baby-Sitters Club in 1985 while working as an editor at Scholastic, and the first books appeared in 1986. Martin wrote the first 35 novels herself before ghostwriters such as Peter Lerangis took over many later titles; by the time publication ended in 2000 the main series had reached 213 novels. Spin-offs included Baby-Sitters Little Sister (1988 to 2000), California Diaries and The Kids in Ms. Colman's Class. She added a prequel, The Summer Before, in 2010, and was a producer on the 2020 Netflix adaptation. Her standalone novels include A Corner of the Universe (Scholastic, 2002), a 2003 Newbery Honor book, and Rain Reign, which shared the 2015 Josette Frank Award.

For collectors

Early Scholastic printings of the first Baby-Sitters Club titles from 1986 are the core of most collections, alongside the books Martin wrote herself before the ghostwriters took over. In 2006 Scholastic's Graphix imprint published a graphic novel of Kristy's Great Idea illustrated by Raina Telgemeier, the start of a new generation of the series that collectors also seek. A Corner of the Universe is her most honoured standalone book.