

* She was a bartender, an acting teacher, a waitress, a travel agent, a window dresser, and a medical assistant - all before becoming an author! Now she is the author of many highly acclaimed picture books, early chapter books, middle-grade biographies, and young adult novels. She then joined up with a group of European young people and traveled in rickety vans through sixteen Asian countries, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. * After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1970's, Mary traveled all over Europe, and spent the first six weeks of her trip living in a cave on the island of Crete. * Mary Pope Osborne grew up in the military, and by the time she was fifteen had lived in Oklahoma, Austria, Florida and four different army posts in Virginia and North Carolina.
