Susan Hood is the award-winning author of many books for young readers, including ALIAS ANNA; LIFEBOAT 12; ADA’S VIOLIN; BROTHERS IN ARMS; THE LAST STRAW: Kids vs. Plastics; SHAKING THINGS UP: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World; TITAN AND THE WILD BOARS: The True Cave Rescue of the Thai Soccer Team; and WE ARE ONE: How the World Adds Up.

Susan is the recipient of the E.B. White Honor Award, two Christopher Awards, the Américas Award, the International Latino Award, the SCBWI Golden Kite Award, and the Bank Street Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, given to “a distinguished work of nonfiction that serves as an inspiration to young people.” Recently, ALIAS ANNA was named a 2023 Sydney Taylor Notable Book and a finalist for the 2023 National Jewish Book Awards.

The Basics

Where I was born: Brooklyn, New York

Where I grew up: We moved to Croton-on-Hudson, New York, when I was one. We lived in a 100-year-old carriage house with a large antique sleigh in the front yard. We moved to Connecticut when I was four.

Where I went to college: Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts

Where I got my first (real) job: Scholastic in New York City

Where I live now: A small town in coastal Connecticut

My Family – Now & Then & Way Back When

Now: Me, my husband, our two daughters, and two little granddaughters

Then: Mom, Dad, me, younger brother, even younger sister

Way back when: My great-great-grandfather was a lighthouse keeper in New Haven, Connecticut. He left to join the Klondike Gold Rush and according to a book I found, “came back a much wiser and poorer man.”

As a Kid

Little-known facts:

• Until I was 10, I had really long braids. Really long!

• My eyes are green, but most people think they’re blue. They change, depending on the color I’m wearing.

• I have a scar under my chin.

• I was the youngest person in my hometown with a library card.

Pets:

My mom adored animals, so we always had a parade of pets, two or three at a time. They were mostly dogs and cats, but also included fish, turtles, a parakeet, and rabbits.

Things I Liked:

• BOOKS!

• Baking pies with my mother

• The dawn-to-dusk hullabaloo that occurred on any family member’s birthday

• My Etch-a-Sketch, Slinky, and Trolls

• A little silver horse I won in my first horse show

• The Christmas my father actually bought all our presents with no help from my mom

• Fading our jeans at camp by tying them to the back of a motorboat

• My parents’ ‘65 Mustang convertible

Things I Didn’t Understand:

• Why mothers worked inside the house and fathers worked outside

• Why the big, scary Standard Poodles across the street had to chase us on our bikes

• Why I couldn’t draw

• Why I had to be the oldest and set an example

• Why my brother was ALWAYS in trouble

• Why I had to take piano lessons when it was my mother who wanted them 

Things I Could Have Lived Without:

• Practicing piano (See above.)

• Eating mushy foods—this included tomatoes, eggs, even sweet mush like whipped cream!

• Getting my bangs cut (See my book BAD HAIR DAY.)

• Dusting

• Swimming the crawl—Although I loved to swim, I could never get the breathing right. My way around it was to put my face in the water and swim on one breath to the other end of the pool. The swim coach kept asking me to be on his team because I was so fast. Little did he know it was self-preservation.

• Our annual six-hour car ride to Cape Cod

Favorite Places:

My backyard. My childhood house was on a small hill that had various flat levels. There was the sledding hill, the garden level, the field, the playhouse level, and “the woods.” It was in the woods where I spent time in “my tree” and on what my brother and I called “The Secret Rock,” which was actually quite dangerous. Only accessible by grabbing a branch of a nearby tree and swinging yourself up, it was a rock outcropping that jutted out into space, overhanging a sheer drop into the neighbors’ yard. The best place on earth.

On a boat. I grew up sailing dinghies, Blue Jays, and Lightnings. Now my husband and I own a Sabre 402 with friends. Summers, we like to sail up and down the New England coast, stopping at all the little islands in Maine. My latest boat is a cedar strip kayak my husband built for me.

Biggest Adventure:

Sailing from Tortola to Bermuda and then back to Connecticut on an Ohlson 38. Three days out, the battery went dead and we lost lights, navigation, and the engine. We found Bermuda by using the stars and a hand-held sextant!

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