Megan McDonald

Megan McDonald (born 1959) is an American children's author and former children's librarian, creator of the Judy Moody chapter books, a series that began in 2000 and has sold more than 30 million copies.

McDonald was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 28 February 1959, the youngest of five girls. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1981, studied children's literature in Boston and took a library science degree at the University of Pittsburgh. She was a children's librarian at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh from 1986 to 1990 and later worked at the Minneapolis Public Library and the Adams Memorial Library in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. She lives in Sebastopol, California.

Her first book, the picture book Is This a House for Hermit Crab? (1990, illustrated by S. D. Schindler), grew out of a puppet-show story she told at library story times. The Bridge to Nowhere (1993) won the Judy Blume Contemporary Fiction Award. Judy Moody (2000), published by Candlewick Press and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds, launched her best-known series and was named an American Library Association best book; Judy Moody Gets Famous (2001) received the same honour. A spin-off series about Judy's younger brother, Stink, began in 2005. She also wrote The Sisters Club books, inspired by her own sisters, and the Julie Albright stories for American Girl, and co-wrote with Kathy Waugh the screenplay for the 2011 film Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer.

For collectors: The Candlewick first edition of Judy Moody (2000) is the cornerstone of a McDonald collection, together with early sequels such as Judy Moody Gets Famous (2001) and Judy Moody Saves the World! (2002).