I love the little stories behind the broad sweep of history, the quirks behind the historical record: the strange saga of phrenology, or the fact that hot air balloons were used during the American Civil War. It's the quirks that bring history alive, and it's the quirks that attract young readers into a historical tale and ultimately into the big story of the sweep of history."
Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1946, Karr grew up on a chicken farm in Dorothy, New Jersey. "My father was originally from southern New Jersey," Karr recalled in AAYA, "and was eager to take his family back there. We had a chicken farm with five thousand laying hens while I was growing up and there were endless chores." Growing up in the rural part of the Garden State had its good and bad points, according to Karr. As a youth she learned to rely on her own inventiveness for free-time activities, with few children her own age about. This led to an early love of reading and writing. From these youthful excursions into reading, she developed an abiding love for the writings of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. "Huckleberry Finn is still my favorite book," Karr noted.
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