The author of 100 Best Books for Children and 500 Great Books for Teens, Anita Silvey has devoted 35 years to promoting books that will turn the young -- and families -- into readers. As publisher of children’s books for Houghton Mifflin Company from 1995-2001, she oversaw all the children’s book and young adult publishing for both the Houghton and Clarion lists, including such well-known authors and illustrators as H. A. and Margret Rey, Virginia Lee Burton, David Macaulay, Lois Lowry, Allen Say, David Wiesner, Karen Cushman, Linda Sue Park, and Chris Van Allsburg.

Prior to her role as publisher, Silvey served for 11 years as Editor-in-Chief of The Horn Book Magazine, a publication many call “the Bible of children’s literature.” As editor of Horn Book, she read several thousand books a year, hunting for those of exceptional quality that children return to again and again. Silvey is the editor of Children’s Books and Their Creators, an overview of 20th Century children’s books. As she says in this volume, “Life is a banquet and most of us starve,” when it comes to knowledge about books for young readers. Little Brown published her selection of short stories for young adults, Help Wanted. Houghton Mifflin published The Essential Guide to Children’s Books and Their Creators in 2002, 100 Best Books for Children in 2004, and 500 Great Books for Teens, in 2006.