Claudia Jones

Claudia Jones was born in Texas in 1950 and grew up in Connecticut, part of a family that enjoyed reading and playing with words. Like the main character in her book, Riding Out the Storm, Claudia, as a young teen, was known to hoist herself onto her horse's bare back and read while her horse wandered around the pasture, grazing. After graduating from Pitzer College in California, Claudia worked with disadvantaged kids at two children's homes, wrote a weekly column on parenting for an Idaho newspaper, and became a teacher. When her son was a preschooler, she stayed home and wrote two books to help parents get involved in their children's education. The first, Parents Are Teachers, Too, is being translated into Chinese this year. Claudia has lived in Arkansas for 24 years with her husband and son, and teaches sixth grade reading/writing workshop.