Ann McGovern was born in New York City on May 25, 1930. She attended the University of New Mexico. At the age of 22, she worked at Little Golden Books, and wrote several books for the company, most of them based on popular children's cartoons and programs. After leaving Little Golden Books, she worked as a freelance writer before taking a position with Random House in the editorial department. During her time there, she wrote Why It's a Holiday in 1960. She then worked as an editor at Scholastic for 13 years before becoming a full time author.
She wrote 55 books during her lifetime including the If You... series, Stone Soup, The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving, Little Wolf, Shark Lady: True Adventures of Eugenie Clark, The Secret Soldier: The Story of Deborah Sampson, Runaway Slave: The Story of Harriet Tubman, and Zoo, Where Are You?. She died on August 8, 2015 at the age of 85.
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