I love getting to the end of a book and reading an author’s note that provides insight into the story’s inspiration. The story is classified as fiction, but there is a seed or small moment that the author used as a starting point to create a character or event. Most recently, Miss Priss and I read Curtain Up by Lisa Fiedler and Anya Wallach. At the end of the book, Wallach explains that, like the main character in the story, she too started a theatre company in her neighborhood as a teen. That real-life experience inspired the book.

After reading The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies, I found an article where Davies explained that her two children were arguing over who had the rights to the driveway for a lemonade stand, and the idea for a lemonade war was born.

Kate Klise, the author of Dying to Meet You, responded to a letter from my students and shared some background information on her book. She told us that she read a newspaper article about an elderly couple who were selling their house with all of the contents including the dog. From that article, Klise was inspired to write a story that would include a house for rent. If you rented the house, you agreed to “rent” the owners’ child as well.

Now that most authors have websites or author’s notes at the end of books, it can be easy to locate the answer to the question, “How did the author get the idea to write this book?” Hunting down the answer to the question is a great way to inspire interest in a book or author, and it has been a great way for me to motivate readers. It also shows students how writers gather ideas and encourages students to analyze small moments in their daily lives and use that as inspiration to start writing.

Here is a short list of books that have interesting backstories into why the author decided to write his/her story. Use THIS ACTIVITY PAGE to have your students complete an author inspiration scavenger hunt to learn how or why an author created a character or plot line in their novel.

• Curtain Up (Stagestruck series) by Lisa Fiedler and Anya Wallach
• The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
• Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Betty Bao Lord
• Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
• Frozen Fire by James Houston
• Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose
• Dying to Meet You by Kate Klise
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies
• Blood on the River: James Town, 1607 by Elisa Carbone
• Ruby on the Outside by Nora Raleigh Baskin

If you want to hear from the author directly, use this freebie CONTACTING BOOK AUTHORS ACTIVITY.