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Tanya Lee Stone

Tanya Lee Stone is best known for telling little-known or unknown stories of women and people of color. She writes middle grades/young adult narrative nonfiction such as Girl Rising, Almost Astronauts, The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie, and Courage Has No Color, and nonfiction picture books such as Elizabeth Leads the Way, Sandy's Circus, Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? and The House that Jane Built. Her work has been recognized by the NAACP Image Award, Robert F. Sibert Medal, Golden Kite Award, Bank Street Flora Straus Steiglitz Award, Jane Addams Honor, YALSA Nonfiction Finalist, Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, NPR Best Books, and NCTE Orbis Pictus Honors. She is also the author of the YA verse novel, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl, which was a Top Ten Banned Book. For more information about Tanya, please visit tanyastone.com. 

Tanya Lee Stone

Tanya's Process

Transcript of interview
 We interviewed Tanya Lee Stone asking questions about her research and writing process for Almost Astronauts. In the recording, you can hear Tanya,
  • ​explain how she first encountered the story of the Mercury 13 women while doing research on Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut,
  • ​talk about the weekend she spent with several of the Mercury 13 women,
  • share how she arrived at the unconventional format of interwoven stories for this book,
  • explain how her propensity to skip over technical descriptions she found boring as a young reader informs her writing decisions,
  • discuss how what we read and what we experience through film and music changes us and our understanding of the world.

Tanya's Books

Girl Rising Cover
Courage Has No Color Cover
Almost Astronauts Cover
The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie
Up Close: Ella Fitzgerald
Amelia Earhart Cover
Abraham Lincoln Cover
Recycle this Book Cover

Other Interviews and  Resources about Tanya

  • Reading Rockets: Interview with Tanya Lee Stone
  • TeachingBooks: Tanya Lee Stone (subscription required to access full resources)
  • Courage Has No Color (Phoenix Books 2013)
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  • Home
  • About Our Work
    • Principles & Framework
  • Chapter Books
    • Almost Astronauts
    • Impossible Escape
    • Maritcha
    • She Persisted: Claudette Colvin
  • Picture books
    • Above the Rim
    • Building Zaha
    • Classified
    • Eleanor Makes Her Mark
    • A Life of Service
    • Make Meatballs Sing
    • Otis and Will Discover the Deep
    • Queen of Physics
    • Sharuko
    • Soldier for Equality
    • The Cat Man of Aleppo
    • Voice of Freedom
    • What Do You Do with a Voice Like That?
    • William Still and His Freedom Stories
  • Authors/Illustrators
    • Chris Barton
    • Tonya Bolden
    • Carole Boston Weatherford
    • Monica Brown
    • Jen Bryant
    • Matthew Burgess
    • Lesa Cline-Ransome
    • Natasha Donovan
    • Edwin Fotheringham
    • Rebecca Huang
    • Barbar Kerley
    • Irene Latham
    • Teresa Robeson
    • Barb Rosenstock
    • Katherine Roy
    • Steve Sheinkin
    • Christina Soontornvat
    • Traci Sorell
    • Tanya Lee Stone
    • Victoria Tentler-Krylov
    • Duncan Tonatiuh
    • Don Tate
  • Collection
  • Stories from the Classroom
    • Teacher Contributors
  • Additional Resources
  • About Us
  • Contact Us