Arnold Adoff (July 16, 1935, in Bronx, New York – May 7, 2021, in Yellow Springs, Ohio) was an American children's writer. In 1988, the National Council of Teachers of English gave Adoff the Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. He has said, "I will always try to turn sights and sounds into words. I will always try to shape words into my singing poems."

Biography

Adoff grew up in the South Bronx, New York, the son of Jewish immigrants from a town near the Polish-Russian border. He enrolled in the Columbia University School of Pharmacy but transferred to City College of New York, where he received a B.A. in history and literature. He married Virginia Hamilton in 1960 and they lived in Europe briefly before moving back to New York City. Adoff taught social studies in Harlem and the Upper West Side of New York. Adoff and Hamilton eventually moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Adoff lived until his death in 2021.

Fiction

Nonfiction