Children's author Jamie Gilson was born in Beardstown, Illinois on July 4, 1933. She received her B.A. from the Northwestern University School of Speech after starting out her education at the University if Missouri. Before becoming an author, she was a teacher, a staff writer and producer for the Chicago Board of Education radio station, a writer of Encyclopaedia Brittanica films, and was a monthly columnist for Chicago magazine. She wrote commercials for radio station WFMT in Chicago as well as writing film and film strips for Encyclopedia Britannica Films.
Most of her novels are humorous contemporary works set in Illinois. She draws on her own childhood as well as visits to local schools for book ideas. As a child, she lived in Pittsfield, Illinois for a few years which later became the setting for two of her novels. Her book Wagon Train 911 was based on her experience of spending two weeks with an entire fifth grade class while they studied the Western Movement using total immersion. The students took pioneer identities, joined a wagon train, and made decisions concerning their trip.
Her books have won numerous awards including the 2005 Prairie State Award for Excellence in Writing for Children presented by the Illinois Reading Council. Two of her books, Thirteen Ways to Sink a Sub and Do Bananas Chew Gum?, have won state child-voted awards from Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
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