About+the+Authors

"For almost twenty-five years, Vera and Bill Cleaver wrote as a team--one developing and researching the ideas, the other doing the actual writing. After her husband's death in 1981, Vera continued to write the type of novels that she and her husband had jointly produced--novels that depict young people accepting responsibility beyond their years and coming to terms with the harsh circumstances of life."

"Born in Virgil, South Dakota, Vera began writing at the early age of six under the influence of her maternal grandfather, who published a newspaper at the time; she received her education in schools in South Dakota and Florida, and eventually worked as a free-lance accountant. She met Bill during World War II. A native of Seattle, Washington, Bill had been educated in private schools in British Columbia before joining the United States Air Force. In 1945 they married and Vera worked as an accountant for the Air Force in Tachikawa, Japan, and Chaumont, France. Unable to complete their formal education, the Cleavers taught themselves in public libraries and got their literary start by publishing almost 300 stories about children for adults in various pulp magazines. Later, they wrote for periodicals such as //McCall's// and //Woman's Day,// and in the late 1960s, they turned to writing for young adult readers. Their work was popular and well-received critically, regularly earning American Library Association notable book citations; four of their novels were finalists in the National Book Award competition: //Where the Lilies Bloom, Grover, The Whys and Wherefores of Littabelle Lee,// and //Queen of Hearts.//"

Citation //Contemporary Authors Online//, Gale, 2010. Reproduced in //Biography Resource Center//. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC