Katherine Applegate

Did You Know?

• Applegate was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• She studied at the University of Austin in Texas.
• She has lived in Texas, Florida, California, Illinois, North Carolina, and Pelago, Italy.

Career

Applegate began her writing career as a ghostwriter for the Sweet Valley Twins series. She co-authored the Animorphs, Everworld, and Remnants book series with her husband Michael Grant. After the conclusion of Remnants, she took a three-year break from writing. Upon returning, she produced the picture book Buffalo Storm, the middle reader novel Home of the Brave, and the early chapter series Roscoe Riley Rules.

Home of the Brave earned the SCBWI 2008 Golden Kite Award for Best Fiction, the Bank Street 2008 Josette Frank Award, and was named a Judy Lopez Memorial Award honor book. In 2013, Applegate won the Newbery Medal for The One and Only Ivan, illustrated by Patricia Castelao. The story is told from the perspective of Ivan the gorilla, based on a real gorilla living in a shopping mall. The book was adapted into a film released in 2020, and was followed by sequels The One and Only Bob, The One and Only Ruby, and The One and Only Family.

Personal life

Applegate married Michael Grant in 1979, and they have co-authored several projects together. In 1997, their first child was born; this child came out as a transgender woman in 2016. The couple adopted a daughter named Julia from China in 2003. Applegate has publicly expressed support for LGBTQ and transgender rights. In a 2022 Instagram post, she criticized Texas governor Greg Abbott over a directive regarding gender-affirming medical treatments. She also disclosed that she had an abortion in 1979 and criticized the murder charge against Lizelle Herrera for a self-induced abortion.

Selected works

Applegate's selected works include Jack Rabbit and the Beanstalk (1998), The Buffalo Storm (2007), Sometimes You Fly (2018), Ivan: A Gorilla's True Story (2020), and the nonfiction The Story of Two American Generals: Benjamin O. Davis Jr. and Colin L. Powell (1991). She wrote Please Don't Go (1992), My Sister's Boyfriend (1992), The World's Best Jinx McGee (1992), The Unbelieveable Truth (1992), and several Disney titles: The Little Mermaid prequels King Triton, Beware!, The Haunted Palace, and The Boyfriend Mix-Up (1994); Christmas With All the Trimmings (1994); and Tales from Agrabah (1995).

Other works include Sharing Sam (1995), Listen to My Heart (1996), Off Limits (2001), Home of the Brave (2007), Eve & Adam (with Michael Grant, 2012), Crenshaw (2015), Wishtree (2017), Willodeen (2021), Odder (2022), Pocket Bear (2025), and Wombat Waiting (2026). She contributed to the L.E. Blair: Girl Talk novels, wrote Harlequin romance novels as Katherine Kendall with Michael Grant, the Silver Creek Riders series as Beth Kincaid, Disney's Aladdin series as A.R. Plumb and later as Katherine Applegate, the Barf-O-Rama series as Pat Pollari, and Disney's Enter If You Dare and Climb Aboard If You Dare as Nicholas Stephens.

The Summer series, originally published as Making Waves in the UK, includes June Dreams (1995) and July's Promise (1995).