Lynne Kelly’s career as a sign language interpreter has taken her everywhere from classrooms to hospitals to Alaskan cruises. She was born in Galesburg, Illinois, grew up in Houston, lived in some much colder places, then found her way back to the Houston area. For a few years she also taught special education, a good career for someone with excellent organizational and planning skills. Lacking those skills, she quit teaching in 2006 and thankfully has more time for writing. But it was during those teaching years that she worked with some great kids and became interested in writing, so that all worked out.
Her 2019 novel Song For a Whale, about a deaf girl named Iris who forms an unlikely bond with the “loneliest whale in the world,” has been described as “finely crafted,” “important,” and “uplifting” by reviewers from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and School Library Journal. Song For a Whale received the 2020 Schneider Family Book Award and was named one of the best books of the year by New York Public Library.
Mary Mosley, Teacher-Librarian, at Ralph Langley Elementary School, TX
