Nora Raleigh Baskin (born ) is an American author of books for children and young adults. Biography Nora Baskin was born in Brooklyn, New York City and is Jewish. When Baskin was three, her mother committed suicide, and many of her own feelings surrounding that incident have later fueled her writing. When Baskin was seven, she and her family moved to upstate New York. When she was 23, she graduated from the State University of New York at Purchase. Her books are based on her life, with Baskin feeling as though she has been writing about the same character much of her life. At first, Baskin began by writing fiction for adults and had been trying to get published for around five years. During a writing course Baskin took, a woman suggested she try writing for children, and Baskin changed her target audience. In 1999, the story of the "sad motherless little girl" that she felt had been inside of her became part of her first published novel, What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows. In her novel Surfacing, Baskin describes grief and how for even small children a family tragedy can "scab over into guilt and blame," according to Kirkus Reviews. Baskin is the winner of the Cuffie Award from Publishers Weekly for Most Promising New Author. Her book The Truth About My Bat Mitzvah was a 2008 Jewish Book Council Network selection. In 2010, she won the American Library Association's (ALA) Schneider Family Award for her book Anything but Typical. Baskin teaches writing and literature in a school. She also holds writers' workshops for middle school. She lives in Weston, Connecticut, with her family. Books Seven Clues to Home (with Gae Posner). Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers. 2020. ISBN 9780593119617. Consider the Octopus. Henry Holt and Co. Books for Young Readers. 2022. ISBN 9781250793515. References External links 1961 births 21st-century American novelists American children's writers American women children's writers American women novelists American young adult novelists Jewish women writers Novelists from New York (state) People from Weston, Connecticut State University of New York at Purchase alumni Women writers of young adult literature Writers from Brooklyn Living people 21st-century American women writers