Born and raised in Hawaii, with a few years in California sandwiched in between, Anne Bustard moved to Texas to attend college and stayed. A former elementary school teacher and then bookseller, she co-owned Toad Hall Children's Bookstore in Austin, Texas. Her innovative summer writing program for children earned her the Lucile Micheels Pannell Award.
After selling her interest in the bookstore, Anne began teaching in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin. There she received a Texas Excellence Teaching Award for her work.
Anne's first children's book, T IS FOR TEXAS (Voyageur Press) has been a popular seller. She has also written numerous articles for the MAILBOX MAGAZINE group featuring classroom connections to children's literature.
BUDDY: THE STORY OF BUDDY HOLLY (A Paula Wiseman Book/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) is her most recent publication.
Anne presents at local, state and national conferences.
Today, Anne Bustard lives in Austin, Texas, where she continues to teach and write.
Anne grew up loving books.
She couldn't wait to start first grade at Montclair Elementary in Oakland, California, because she knew it was there that she would learn how to read. Imagine how surprised Anne was on her first day of school when she discovered it would take more than one day.
In fifth grade, her teacher, Mrs. Crowe, who was also the school librarian, read novels aloud to the class every day. And she encouraged her class to read as many books as they could. That's where Anne discovered THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnett, THE ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS by Scott O'Dell, and MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN by Jean Craighead George.
Right before sixth grade, Anne and her parents moved back to Hawaii and the Kailua Public Library was where she found great books. And not too far away, was Mrs. Beamer's hula studio, where Anne and her friends took hula lessons for the next seven years.
In a seventh grade English class, Anne wrote a story and shared it with others for the first time. It was a mystery. The butler did it.
Most of Anne's writing during high school was school-related, but she did pen a lot of bad poems in her spare time.
At college, first at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and then at the University of Texas at Austin, Anne studied to become a teacher. Children's Literature was her favorite course. After graduating she taught fourth grade and then reading instruction to second through fifth graders. She read aloud to her students every day.
Then Anne went back to school to earn a library degree and began working in a children's-only bookstore called Toad Hall. As soon as she graduated, she became a co-owner of the store. Besides recommending terrific books to customers, her favorite job was reading new ones.
Anne had always wanted to write books for children. It was at the bookstore that she got the idea for T IS FOR TEXAS. After many revisions, and many rejections, her alphabet book was published.
While managing the bookstore, Anne went back to school. Again. This time she worked on a PhD in language and literacy studies. And when she graduated, she sold her interest in the bookstore and began teaching wannabe teachers. And writing more for children. BUDDY: THE STORY OF BUDDY HOLLY is her latest publication.
Reading is still a big part of Anne's life. She loves children's books most of all. Even her cat Alexander comes from literary stock. Since his mother was named Fern, after the girl in CHARLOTTE'S WEB, Anne wanted to give him a bookish name, too. She called him Alexander, Al for short, after the character in Judith Viorst's ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY. Anne's talented cat has turned on the garbage disposal, jumped through an unopened window (unharmed), and scratched lots of furniture.
Besides family, friends, and books, Anne loves:
KUT Radio
Grey cats
Sunny days
Kailua Beach
Chinese food
It's a bird. It's a bird. Really.
