Jacqueline Kelly won the Newbery Honor for her first book, "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate". She was born in New Zealand and raised in Canada, in the dense rainforests of Vancouver Island. Her family then moved to El Paso, Texas, and Kelly attended college in El Paso, then went on to medical school in Galveston. After practicing medicine for many years, she went to law school at the University of Texas, and after several years of law practice, realized she wanted to write fiction. Her first story was published in the "Mississippi Review" in 2001. She now makes her home with her husband and various cats and dogs in Austin and Fentress, Texas.