Sandra Horning, Children’s Book Author
Sandra Horning was born and grew up near Reading, Pennsylvania. She went to Mt. Penn High School, a small public high school. After graduating from Mt. Penn, she attended Bryn Mawr College outside of Philadelphia, where she majored in Sociology and minored in Russian.Sandra’s love of children’s books was evident even in college when she wrote a sociology paper and gave a presentation on cultural hegemony as reflected in the Berenstain Bear books, which her little sister adored at the time. Although her professor agreed to the topic, Sandra remembers that he looked a bit perplexed. She spent hours in the children’s room of the public library analyzing each Berenstain Bear book.
After her presentation, Sandra’s professor came up to her and said not only had she done a great job, but he also enjoyed her reading of The Berenstain Bears Go Out for the Team to her fellow sociology majors.
After college, Sandra spent a year working in the children’s section at a Borders Bookstore, where her interest in and knowledge of children’s books grew. Still, she never thought she would write a children’s book and her jobs were taking her in the direction of social research and computer work, away from writing and children’s books.
Then a few years later, Sandra’s husband’s studies took them to County Galway, Ireland, where she kept a daily journal and wrote letters and e-mails filled with stories of her Irish adventures. Sandra’s friends loved her stories and encouraged her to keep writing. Finally, she realized how much she enjoyed writing and that it was what she should have been doing all along.
Sandra began writing picture books in Ireland, but she didn’t seriously begin submitting them until a few years later, after her first son was born. While her son was still a baby she took a correspondence class at the Institute of Children’s Literature, which helped her to write more regularly and taught her how to properly submit manuscripts. Upon completing this course, inspiration for Sandra’s first published picture book, The Giant Hug, struck.
At the time, Sandra’s father still worked at the Reading, PA post office, where he had worked her entire life. When he was on the verge of retiring, he was diagnosed with a serious disease that caused him to have difficulty walking. Sandra’s older son was two years old then and a big fighter of naptime.
One day, while preoccupied with thoughts of her father, Sandra was trying to get her son to sleep and he, of course, wasn’t interested. When Sandra started to get visibly frustrated, her son leaned over, opened his arms as wide as he possibly could and gave her a giant hug.
The hug melted all of Sandra’s frustrations and fears in an instant. Sandra thought if she could just package that hug and send it to her dad and mom, it would help them through their struggles. Thus, the idea for The Giant Hug was born.
Sandra doesn’t often get to sit down and write when an idea strikes her; instead, she usually takes notes and tries to recreate the idea later. But The Giant Hug was different. Sandra started scribbling away right in the moment of the idea (her son playing, not sleeping, at her side) and the story poured out of her. It was a defining moment in Sandra’s life and in her confidence as a writer. She wanted to express how a child’s hug is priceless and can instantly change your whole outlook for the better.
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