newbery honor author 

new york times bestseller

Gennifer Choldenko
Gennifer Choldenko
Gennifer Choldenko
More about Gennifer

About Gennifer

I am the youngest child in a large, loud fam­i­ly. We are so loud, in fact, that strangers some­times asked us if our par­ents were deaf. Our par­ents aren’t deaf. They are as you can see one mush­room and one bun­ny rabbit.

Gennifer Choldenko parents in costume

My moth­er the mush­room, my father the bun­ny rab­bit … did I real­ly have a chance as the off­spring of these two?

Gennifer Choldenko cousins

What are they doing to me? And take a look at my cousin, Jody, in the white pants and the weird glass­es. She was the one who named me “Snot-Nose,” too. (Don’t wor­ry. I’m get­ting back at her by pub­lish­ing this pho­to on the Internet.)

My nick­name as a kid was “Snot-Nose.” I spent most of my time on the back of a horse, explor­ing the crag­gy hills of South­ern California.

Gennifer Choldenko baby in bassinette

Yep, that’s me in the bassinet. My sib­lings look thrilled to have me, don’t they? Kind of resem­bles a wake.

Gennifer Choldenko baby with attitude

The atti­tude … that start­ed at birth.

Gennifer Choldenko smiling girl

Was cutest when miss­ing vital parts of my anato­my. Should­n’t some­one have told me to keep my mouth closed?

Gennifer Choldenko Brownie

Not exact­ly a hap­py camper. Prob­a­bly guilt. Yes, I think this was right after I ate all the cookies.

When I was six, our fam­i­ly went to vis­it some friends of my par­ents. Dur­ing din­ner at the kid’s table, I was faced with the chal­lenge of hold­ing my own in a large group of old­er kids, some of whom I had nev­er met before. That night, a pecu­liar slap hap­pi­ness hit me and I began to make up jokes and sto­ries, which made no sense what­so­ev­er, yet were strange­ly fun­ny. Since that time, my fam­i­ly has referred to these quirky non­sen­si­cal sto­ries as Gen­nifer Jokes. Some­times when I’m writ­ing, I hear that weird humor again.