Education
Christopher Paul Curtis did not become a published author until he was in his 40's. Before his first novel was published, he spent much of his adult life working in an automobile factory. Work at the factory became so unbearable that Curtis began having semi-hallucinations at night of car doors and assembly lines moving through his bedroom. Fortunately, Curtis' fate changed dramatically when his first two novels received some of the most prestigious awards in all of children's literature. AdLit.org is a national multimedia project offering information and resources to the parents and educators of struggling adolescent readers and writers. For more interviews with young adult authors, visit us at www.AdLit.org, a national education service of public television station WETA. Funding is provided by grants from Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ann B. and Thomas L. Friedman Family Foundation.