Maryrose Wood
Maryrose Wood is the author of the Bad Badger books for middle-grade readers, including Bad Badger: A Love Story and Bad Badger: A Family Story, published by Union Square Kids. Books in the series have earned starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and School Library Journal, as well as an Earphones Award from AudioFile magazine (audiobook narrated by Chris Devon). Illustrations by Giulia Ghigini were selected for the prestigious Society of Illustrators show in New York.
Maryrose also wrote The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, the acclaimed series about a teenaged governess and her three wolf-raised pupils, published by Balzer + Bray. Titles in the six-book series have appeared on “Best Children’s Books of the Year” lists from NPR, Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus, and others. They’ve been Junior Library Guild selections and received multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Booklist. Maryrose’s middle-grade novel, Alice’s Farm, A Rabbit’s Tale, from Feiwel & Friends, was named a Charlotte Huck Notable book by the National Council of Teachers of English.
Maryrose’s first career was in the theater. She appeared in the original Broadway cast of Merrily We Roll Along, the classic Stephen Sondheim/George Furth musical featured in the 2016 documentary, Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. Her work as a lyricist/librettist for musical theatre has made her a three-time winner of the Richard Rodgers Award, administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
A champion of thoughtful children’s literature, Maryrose believes in the power of well-structured, beautifully written narratives to have an enduring impact on readers and the culture at large. She offers training and mentorship for writers through her own program, called Path of the Storyteller. She’s taught fiction writing at City University of New York-Lehman College and New York University’s Gallatin School, and has served on the faculty of the Stony Brook Children’s Literature Fellows program.
Maryrose is a native New Yorker who now lives and writes in southern Italy, near the town from which her mother, uncle, and grandparents emigrated to the United States in the 1930s. Her two grown kids and their spouses are a constant source of joy. As ever, she’s working on something new.