Paul Fleischman grew up in Santa Monica, California, hearing his father, Sid Fleischman, read his books aloud as they were written, chapter by chapter. Both father and son have won the Newbery Medal, Sid for The Whipping Boy in 1987, and Paul for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices in 1989.
When 19, after two years of college in Berkeley, Paul took a cross-country bicycle and train trip and ended up living in a 200-year-old house in New Hampshire. The years there were spent leading a modified 18th century lifestyle (wood heating, no electricity or phone) which kindled an interest in the past that led to the historical fiction he would later write.
Over the years, Paul has written about the Puritans' Indian wars, Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic, the Civil War, and the naturalists Townsend and Nuttall.
Paul has two grown sons, Seth and Dana. After sojourns in Vermont, Nebraska, New Mexico, France, and North Carolina, he is back in California, living in the village of Aromas with his wife, Patty.
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