Sara Hoagland Hunter

Ever since second grade, when I visited Louisa May Alcott's home and saw her desk with a view toward Walden Pond, I have been writing stories. I wrote plays and scripts as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, then feature articles and radio stories at The Christian Science Monitor,a documentary on Korean/American adoption, and children's books and songs. Most popular, so far, have been my songs for Warner Bros. Baby Looney Tunes television series and the picture book, The Unbreakable Code, the story of the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II. With illustrator and college friend, Julia Miner, I traveled to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico to interview the courageous, modest Navajo veterans who invented a code that was never broken during the Pacific island battles of World War II. The picture book that resulted from our collaboration has won numerous awards: including a Smithsonian Magazine Notable book, and the Governor of Arizona Book of the Year. Most rewarding, the book was endorsed by the Navajo Code Talkers Association. Many of the Marines I interviewed for the book in 1994 are gone now but their strength continues to inspire me and I cherish my ongoing friendship with their families. Two more recent children's books again celebrated unsung heroes. The Lighthouse Santa (UPNE, 2011), also illustrated by Julia Miner, is based on the story of Edward Rowe Snow who, for close to fifty years, dropped Christmas presents from his plane to all the children living in New England's remote lighthouses. Every Turtle Counts (2014) chronicles the efforts to rescue earth's rarest sea turtles stranded each winter in Cape Cod Bay. The hero of the story is a child with autism, based on my niece, who forges a special bond with one special turtle. My newest book, Stories from Home: Dover Days, is a book of cozy, childhood reminiscences from not-so-long-ago when houses poured out kids for endless afternoons of fort building, skating, sledding and trips to the penny candy store -- for all grownups who, like me, hold childhood deep in their hearts.