I guess my writing career began soon after my learning to hold a pencil. My first poem was published in the Columbus Dispatch (in Ohio) when I was 10 years old.
 
About Cheryl Bardoe
I’d forgotten all about it until my Mom—beaming with pride that her daughter has now written a book—pulled the yellowed clipping from an entire folder of poems and stories that she’d saved from my youth. A few of these were “self-published” in homemade books, sandwiched in between book covers made from wallpaper samples.
    Fast forward to college, where I attended the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Professors drilled us on using the 5 W’s (Who, What, Where, When and Why) to organize news stories and taught the art of the follow-up question. These skills never grow old.
    I’ve been living in Chicago ever since, making a living mostly by writing everything from five-word marketing slogans to policy reports, brochures, magazine articles, education pieces, direct mail letters, annual reports, press kits, newsletters and websites. I’ve even written the text for a museum exhibition on Chinese dinosaurs. Roooaaaarrrrr! These days I’m a project manager in the exhibitions department at The Field Museum—that’s the one with the dinosaurs, totem poles and mummies.
    In 2001 I took my first class in writing for children. Business consultants would call this an “aha moment.” Here was a new way to be involved with the world of children’s literature that I loved (and still reread books from childhood for guilty pleasure). How had I never thought of it before? Probably because it’s a long way from an aha moment to writing and selling a book for publication.
    My first book, Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas, is released by Abrams Books for Young Readers, in association with The Field Museum. In addition to the usual places that books are sold, it accompanies an exhibition called Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics, which appears at The Field Museum September 15, 2006 – April 1, 2007 and then travels to four other U.S. museums.
    Now I get the thrill of my husband finding our three-year-old son sitting on the floor quietly (yes quietly!) , carefully (yes carefully!) flipping the pages of my first book and saying “Mama wrote the words for this story.” My son even knows the title, well roughly. He calls it “Gregor Mendel Grew Peas.”
    Life is good.
 
Here’s one of my earliest poems, and a collage illustration for a story about a mouse with a rainbow tail. Here’s what I looked like throughout most of my childhood— nose in a book. I even kept a bag of books between my bed and the wall to read by the hallway light at night. That’s terrible for your eyes, kids! At least use a flashlight, which is probably bad enough. I live in Chicago and work at The Field Museum. It’s pretty cool!
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All photos by Cathryn Montoya, unless otherwise noted.