SOURCE CITATION
"Margaret Peterson Haddix." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
Photograph by Summit Photographics and provided by Simon and Schuster.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Award-winning author Margaret Peterson Haddix has written a number of highly praised novels for young adults and juvenile readers that deal with topics from religious cults and futuristic dystopias to modern-day science fiction and reality-based fiction. Haddix's 1995 debut novel, Running out of Time, a time-slip story with a twist, has become something of a classic of the form and was adopted for use in middle school classrooms around the United States. Other novels, both fanciful and realistic, from the pen of Haddix include Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey, Leaving Fishers, Among the Hidden, Just Ella, Turnabout, The Girl with 500 Middle Names, Takeoffs and Landings, and Among the Imposters. A former journalist-turned-author, Haddix stumbled into writing for young readers. "In fact," noted a contributor to the Akron Beacon Journal in an interview with Haddix, the author "was trying to 'get discovered' as a short-story writer when she fell into the world of children's literature, much as Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole." With the popularity of Running out of Time, and with several awards to her credit, Haddix decided that this particular rabbit hole was one worth exploring.

Haddix was born in Washington Court House, Ohio, in 1964, the daughter of a farming father and a mother who worked as a nurse. "I grew up on lots of stories," Haddix once commented, "both from books and in my family. My father in particular was always telling tales to my brothers and sister and me--about one of our ancestors who was kidnapped, about some friends who survived lying on a railroad bridge while a train went over the top of them, about the kid who brought possum meat to the school cafeteria when my father was a boy. So I always thought that becoming a storyteller would be the grandest thing in the world. But I didn't want to just tell stories. I wanted to write them down."

Through adolescence and on into high school, Haddix maintained her love of both reading and writing. "For a long time, I tried to write two different kinds of stories: real and imaginary," she once said. When the time came for college, Haddix chose Miami University, where she earned a B.A. summa cum laude with both university honors and honors in English. "In college I majored in both journalism and creative writing (and history, just because I liked it). After college, I got jobs at newspapers, first as a copy editor in Fort Wayne, then as a reporter in Indianapolis. It was a lot of fun, especially getting to meet and talk to people from all walks of life, from homeless women to congressmen."

All the time, on weekends and in the evenings, she continued to stretch her writing repertoire, working on short stories. "But this was frustrating," Haddix once observed, "because there was never enough time. So, in 1991, when my husband got a new job in Danville, Illinois, I took a radical step: I quit newspapers. I took a series of temporary and part-time jobs, such as teaching at a community college, and used the extra time to write."

The first large-story idea to percolate in Haddix's imagination was the seed of her first published book, Running out of Time. "I'd gotten the idea when I was doing a newspaper story about a restored historical village," Haddix recalled. "I kept wondering what it would be like if there was a historical village where all the tourists were hidden and the kids, at least, didn't know what year it really was." In the event, her first manuscript was quickly accepted by an editor at Simon & Schuster, and Haddix was on her way as a juvenile author.

In Running out of Time, thirteen-year-old Jessie Keyser lives with her family in a frontier village in 1840, but when the town's children are stricken with diphtheria, Jessie's mother reveals that it is actually the 1990s, and the village is a tourist exhibit and scientific experiment gone awry. Jessie is, in fact, sent to the outside world to get help; her mother is fearful that the one-time idealistic planners of this "ideal" village may have become evil. In fact, Jessie's mother is right: the idealism of Mr. Clifton, who started the community a dozen years before, has been subverted by researchers who have now introduced an outbreak of diphtheria in order to see what will happen to patients without modern medical care. Out in the real world of the 1990s, Jessie comes into contact with modernity with a vengeance: she has to deal with phones, traffic, flush toilets, and the seductions of fast food.

Reviewers were generally positive in their reception of this first novel. Writing in School Library Journal, Lisa Dennis dubbed the book "absorbing" and "gripping," further noting that the "action moves swiftly, with plenty of suspense" as Jessie attempts to make her way through the modern world, looking for help for her family and friends. "The suspense and the cataloguing of differences as they appear to Jessie are the best parts," wrote Mary Harris Veeder in a Booklist review of the novel. Voice of Youth Advocates critic Ann Welton, however, complained that Jessie's adjustment to the drastic shift in time "is far too smooth, resulting in a lack of narrative tension." Welton did, however, go on to point out that the book had "potential as a model for writing assignments and provides an interesting perspective on American history." In his review of Running out of Time, Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books critic Roger Sutton also felt that Jessie's "disorientation upon discovering the modern world would surely have been more pronounced than it seems," but he predicted that "many kids . . . will be gripped by the concept, and the book, readable throughout, (is) exciting in spots." Dennis concluded in School Library Journal that young readers "will look forward to more stories from this intriguing new author." They did not have long to wait.

"I wrote my second book, Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey, when I was eight months pregnant with my first child, and feeling a little bored," Haddix once explained. "The story should have been very difficult to write, because I had a happy childhood and wonderful parents, and should have had nothing in common with the main character--tough-talking, big-haired Tish, whose parents abandoned her. But I'd once worked on a newspaper series where I talked to more than a dozen abused and neglected kids, and their stories haunted me for years. So writing Don't You Dare was almost like an exorcism--I did feel possessed by Tish's spirit. Actually, in a way, everything I've written has felt like that, like being possessed. When I'm writing, I feel like I must write."

Critics noted that Haddix relies on a much more familiar set-up for her second novel, placing Tish Bonner, the main character in Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey, in an English class where she is required to keep a journal, giving the reader an insider's view of her troubles. Since Tish has no one but her journal to confide in as she deals with an absent father, a depressed mother unable to care for her or her younger brother, and a part-time job where the manager subjects her to sexual harassment, "the tone here shifts only in terms of varying shades of anger," a reviewer observed in Publishers Weekly. The same writer further described this second book as a "tough-edged if familiar story of a beleaguered high school girl" who confides all her difficulties in her diary. The title of the book refers to the teacher who has promised to only read finished work inspired by her students' journal entries, and not the individual entries themselves. Tish's predicament goes from bad to worse when she has to shoplift from a local store to feed herself and her brother Matthew, and then she faces eviction from her home, as well. Finally Tish turns over the entire journal to her sensitive teacher who helps the young girl find help.

"Tish's journal entries have an authentic ring in phrasing and tone and will keep readers involved," Carol Schene claimed in School Library Journal. The result, according to Schene is a "brief, serious look at a young person who is isolated and faced with some seemingly overwhelming problems." Jean Franklin, writing in Booklist, called the book "a brief, gritty documentary novel . . . a natural for reluctant readers." Jamie S. Hansen, writing in Voice of Youth Advocates, echoed this sentiment: "The breezy style, short diary-entry format, and melodramatic subject matter will ensure popularity for this title, particularly with reluctant readers."

After becoming the mother of two children, Meredith and Connor, Haddix admitted "amuse(ment) that I felt like I didn't have enough time to write before they were born. It's much harder now. . . . And a lot of times when I'm doing the ordinary things that go along with having two kids, a husband, and a house . . . I'm listening to a voice in my head insisting, 'Write about me!' or suggesting things like, 'What if Dorry's dad confronts her before she goes to the mall?' Now, I'll be the first to admit that it sounds a little weird to have voices talking in my head, but I wouldn't have it any other way."

While Haddix's novels for young adults share little in terms of plot, setting, or theme, critics have commended the author's ability to involve even reluctant readers in the lives of her characters. Thus with her third novel, Haddix moved to yet new themes and settings--this time dealing with religious cults and one youngster's attempts at extricating herself from such a group. In Leaving Fishers, Haddix tells the story of young Dorry, whose life has been uprooted both geographically and economically. Suffering from diminished circumstances, Dorry is also upset that she has not been able to make friends at her new school. When Angela, one of several attractive and friendly kids who congregate together, asks her to join her friends at lunch, Dorry is eager to blend in. Her enthusiasm is not much diminished when she learns that these students are all part of a religious group called the Fishers of Men. She is introduced to their parties and retreats, and soon these pizza parties turn into prayer groups. Dorry becomes caught up in the zeal at such retreats and becomes a member of the Fishers. Increasingly, Dorry finds all her time taken up with the cult's activities, and begins to fear that she will go to hell if she does not do everything she is told to do by Angela and her assortment of fellow adherents. Neglecting family and school, Dorry is soon caught in the grips of the Fishers. Only when she discovers herself terrifying young baby-sitting charges with threats of hell if they do not convert does Dorry finally see what has been happening to her. She shakes off the bonds of the cult, unlike other young practitioners.

"Haddix gives a fine portrayal of a teenager's descent into a cult," wrote Booklist's Ilene Cooper, who further noted that the book was a "good read and an informative one for young people who are constantly bombarded with challenges to their beliefs." Reviewing the same title in Voice of Youth Advocates, Beverly Youree felt Leaving Fishers "is a definite page-turner, full of excitement and pathos." Youree concluded that "Dorry and readers learn that the world is neither black nor white, good nor bad, but shades of gray." A critic for Kirkus Reviews called the novel "a chilling portrait of an insecure teenager gradually relinquishing her autonomy to a religious cult" and a "wholly convincing picture of the slow, insidious stages by which Dorry is 'caught'." The same reviewer went on to note that Haddix's novel, "tightly written, with well-drawn characters," is "in no way anti-religious." In the end, indeed, Dorry does not turn against religion, but against the sort of mind-numbing cult that seeks total domination over its believers. She continues her spiritual quest, but on her own terms. "Haddix's even-handed portrayal of the rewards of Christian fellowship and the dangers of a legalistic or black-and-white approach to religion" are, according to a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, the "book's greatest strength(s)."

Haddix next turned her hand to a future dystopia à la 1984 or Brave New World. With Among the Hidden, the novelist tells the story of a future totalitarian regime that strictly observes a two-children-only policy. Luke, twelve, is the third child of a farming family and is thus illegal. When the government starts to cut the woods around the family home to make way for new housing, Luke must hide from view, looking at the world outside through a small air vent in the attic. From this vantage point, he one day sees a shadowy figure in a nearby house and begins to suspect that this might be another hidden person like himself. One day he breaks into the seemingly empty house only to find Jen, a hidden child with a tough exterior who has been secreted in this neighboring house. Through Jen, Luke learns of an entire subculture of hidden children via chat rooms on the Internet. He learns through such discussions, and through literature given to him by Jen, of the repressive policies of the government. When Jen organizes a rally of other hidden children that ends in bloodshed and her death, Luke must finally make a decision as to how far he will go to defy the government in order to have a life that is worth living.

Critics responded positively to the theme of this futuristic novel, applauding, as did a Publishers Weekly contributor, for example, "the unsettling, thought-provoking premise (which) should suffice to keep readers hooked." Susan L. Rogers, writing in School Library Journal, observed that, as with Haddix's debut novel, Running Out of Time, this fourth novel took as its theme the loss of free will. Describing Among the Hidden as "exciting and compelling," Rogers remarked that readers "will be captivated by Luke's predicament and his reactions to it." Debbie Earl noted in Voice of Youth Advocates that Haddix presents a "chilling vision of a possibly not-too-distant future" in this "bleak allegorical tale."

Among the Imposters is a sequel to Among the Hidden which picks up the story of Luke Garner as he is sent to a boarding school under the name of Lee Grant. Hendricks School for Boys is a place of violence and fear, where the terrified students quietly follow orders and Luke suffers nightly hazing at the hands of older boys. He soon discovers that some of the boys, along with girls from a neighboring girls' school, are meeting secretly in the woods to plot their escape. Luke must decide whether to join the plotters in their dangerous plan. Brenda Moses-Allen in the Voice of Youth Advocates found the story to be filled with "tension and excitement." Among the Betrayed and Among the Barons, a work in progress, continue the story.

With Just Ella, her fifth novel, Haddix presented herself yet another creative challenge: rethinking a traditional fairy tale, and putting, as a Publishers Weekly reviewer commented, "a feminist spin on the Cinderella story." Haddix starts her revisionist tale at the point in action where the fairy tale ends. Planning to live happily ever after with her Prince Charming who has saved her from her evil step-family, Ella Brown is sorely disappointed upon arrival at the prince's castle. An energetic and resourceful person, Ella has found her own way to the ball where she met the prince, without the aid of a magical fairy godmother. Now she is sorely in need of such divine intervention, for she discovers her husband-to-be is yawningly boring; neither is a continual diet of needlepoint enough to keep her intellectually challenged. Ella's independent nature is assaulted by the etiquette lessons which Madame Bisset dishes out, but her young tutor, Jed, does talk to her about things that matter, and soon she sees that there is no way she can go through with her planned marriage. But then Ella discovers it is not all that easy to walk away from the prince, for she finds herself locked away in a dungeon when her fiancé gets wind of her resolve. However, with the help of a servant girl she has befriended, Ella manages to tunnel her way to freedom and to a life that has meaning for her.

Once again, readers and critics responded warmly to Haddix's writing and invention. "In lively prose, with well-developed characters, creative plot twists, wit, and drama, Haddix transforms the Cinderella tale into an insightful coming-of-age story," wrote Shelle Rosenfeld in a Booklist review. Rosenfeld also commented that Just Ella was a "provocative and entertaining novel." The contributor for Publishers Weekly concluded that Ella's "straightforward, often gleefully glib narrative breathes fresh life into the tale," while Connie Tyrrell Burns, writing in School Library Journal, called the book an "imaginative retelling" and recommended it for older readers who could "enjoy this new take on a strong heroine." "Make room in the canon of retold tales for a spirited, first-person retelling of 'Cinderella'," proclaimed Cynthia Grady in Voice of Youth Advocates. "Ella," concluded Grady, "is a thoughtful heroine who overcomes her youthful 'foolishness'." Similarly, Natalie Soto, reviewing the novel in the Rocky Mountain News, felt that "Ella is a strong and sensitive character sure to make girls cheer."

Haddix returned to the future with Turnabout, a novel set in 2085, when the pavement is made of foam rubber and society favors singles. As with her first novel, this one involves a scientific experiment gone wrong. At the heart of this novel is the question, "What if people could turn back the aging clock?" Haddix explores this question through two characters, Melly and Anny Beth, aged respectively 100 and 103 in the year 2001 and residing in a nursing home. Part of an experiment to "un-age," the two are given PT-1, a drug in the Project Turnabout program that will reverse the aging process, allowing the participant to grow younger every year until they reach a self-determined perfect age. At that point, they will receive another injection which will stop the process. The only problem is that this second shot proves fatal, and now the members of Project Turnabout are doomed to continue "unaging" until they reach zero. The novel switches between the present and 2085 when Melly and Anny Beth are teenagers and must find someone to parent them as they grow increasingly younger. Upping the stakes is a reporter who has gotten wind of the project and is trying to track Melly; this would destroy any chance of privacy these refugees from age have, and they have to flee from unwanted exposure. In the telling, Haddix also offers her own view of what the future will be like, with toothpaste so perfect that dentists are no longer necessary, cars that drive themselves, and a society so smitten with news that individual privacy is a thing of the past.

"The story is irresistible," noted an interviewer for the Akron Beacon Journal, and "good reading for adults too." Haddix told this writer that she thought she would have trouble picturing the future. "But then I decided to have some fun with it and not be so concerned. I extrapolated from trends I see in society today and pushed them farther." A contributor for Publishers Weekly called Turnabout a "thought-provoking science fiction adventure" and further noted that Haddix "keeps the pacing smooth and builds up to a surprising face-off." Debbie Carton, reviewing the novel in Booklist, felt that the need for love and protection "is poignantly conveyed, as is the isolation of the elderly in society." Carton also thought that the book "will provoke lively discussion in middle-school book clubs." School Library Journal contributor Beth Wright commented that the theme of the book would spark "thoughtful discussion about human life and human potential."

More realistic, contemporary fare is served up in two other novels, The Girl with 500 Middle Names and Takeoffs and Landings. An easy-to-read chapter book for beginning readers, The Girl is about third-grade Janie and her parents who have been having financial problems because of a back injury her father suffered. Janie's mother picks up the slack with knitwear she creates and moves the family to a better school district. Unfortunately Janie feels out of place there and the various sweaters she wears, all with different monogrammed middle names--she is trying to advertise for her mom's knitwear--confuse students. But in the end, things turn out fine: Janie gets a best friend and her mother's creations begin to take off in this "warmhearted tale of a self-possessed girl who is determined to make life better for her parents," according to Maryann H. Owen in a School Library Journal review. Written for an older audience, Takeoffs and Landings presents a "family struggling with guilt and loss (who) learns that repressing feelings can be harmful," as B. Allison Gray described the novel in School Library Journal. Lori Lawson is fourteen and a typical teen; her older brother Chuck is overweight and insecure as a result. Neither has a good relationship with the mother, a motivational speaker. When Mrs. Lawson decides to take her kids with her on a speaking tour in hopes of bridging the gulf between them, secrets from the past about their dead father help to patch things up, and allow the children to gain self-confidence and to show love. Gray felt that younger teens "will enjoy the generally melodramatic tone, finding satisfaction in the revelations that occur in the end."

Haddix continues to have many works in progress, from sequels to her own works to shorter novels for young readers. Her background in journalism and novels is apparent in her meticulous and informed writing, and her appreciation for and belief in the written word. Haddix also credits her journalism experience with exposing her to a wide variety of topics and situations. She told MAICYA: "For most of the time I spent in journalism, I was a general assignment reporter, which meant that I might cover a school board meeting one day, interview a bereaved family the next day, and attend a press conference the next day. People often ask me why I now write such different books, switching from one genre to another. That variety seems like a natural outgrowth of my journalistic writing, as well as my own interests. I enjoy exploring lots of different subjects, and I hope that kids do, too."

UPDATES
August 11, 2004: Haddix's publisher, Simon & Schuster, is considering legal action against the Walt Disney Company over similarities between Haddix's book Running Out of Time and M. Night Shyamalan's film The Village. Source: MSNBC, http://msnbc.msn.com, August 11, 2004.

May 2006: Haddix's "Shadow Children" novel Among the Free was published by Simon & Schuster. Source: Simon & Schuster, www.simonsays.com, June 1, 2006

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born April 9, 1964, in Washington Court House, OH; daughter of John Albert (a farmer) and Marilee Grace (a nurse; maiden name, Greshel) Peterson; married Doug Haddix (a newspaper editor), October 3, 1987; children: Meredith, Connor. Avocation: Travel. Education: Miami University, B.A. (English; summa cum laude), 1986. Religion: Presbyterian. Memberships: Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Phi Beta Kappa. Addresses: Agent--Tracey Adams, McIntoch & Otis, 353 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10016.

CAREER
Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, Fort Wayne, IN, copy editor, 1986-87; Indianapolis News, Indianapolis, IN, reporter, 1987-91; Danville Area Community College, Danville, IL, adjunct faculty, 1991-93; freelance writer, 1991-94.