Mary Ann Hoberman

Mary Ann Hoberman was born in Stamford, Connecticut. She earned a BA in history from Smith College and (35 years later) an MA in English literature from Yale University. She cofounded and performed with both “The Pocket People,” a children’s theatre group, and “Women’s Voice,” a group giving dramatized poetry readings. But ever since her first book was published in 1957, her primary occupation has been writing for children.

Hoberman is the author of roughly 50 books, all but one of which is in verse. Her first book of poems, All My Shoes Come in Two’s, was illustrated by her husband. Some of her best-known titles are A House is a House for Me, The Seven Silly Eaters, and The Llama Who Had No Pajama, a collection of one hundred of her favorite poems. Her poems have been widely anthologized and her books have been translated into several languages. She is the recipient of a National Book Award and the 2003 Poetry for Children Award of the National Council of Teachers of English. A former volunteer with Literacy Volunteers of America, Hoberman made literacy one of her primary concerns, writing the best-selling You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You series. She has taught from elementary through college levels and visits schools and libraries nationwide, sharing her poems and the joys of reading.

Hoberman served as the Poetry Foundation's children's poet laureate from 2008 to 2011. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut with her husband Norman, an architect and sculptor, in a house that he designed. They have four children and five grandchildren.