Joyce Sidman

Born and raised in Connecticut, children’s poet Joyce Sidman earned a BA in German at Wesleyan University. The products of extensive research, Sidman’s inventive, accessible poems for children are frequently set in the natural world, composed in the voices (and sometimes shapes) of animals and historical figures.

Sidman has published numerous books of poetry for children, including Newbery Medal–nominated Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night (2010, illustrated by Rick Allen); Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors (2010, illustrated by Beckie Prange), which was named a Best Book of the Year by Publisher’s Weekly and the Washington Post and a Best Children’s book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews; Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Lee Bennett Hopkins Award–winner Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems (2005), for which illustrator Beckie Prange was awarded a Caldecott Honor; and Bank Street Best Book of the Year Eureka! Poems about Inventors (2002, illustrated by K. Bennett Chavez). Her chapbook of poems for adult readers, Like the Air (1999), won the New Women’s Voices Award from Finishing Line Press. She lives in Wayzata, Minnesota.