DARIA VERNON peaked in the third grade.
Her debut book, about a cockatiel named Popcorn, was published in first grade by Mrs. Sawyer’s Imprint—a feisty independent press consisting of a lamination machine in the janitor’s closet next door to the classroom. In second grade, she declared to her mother that she would win the statewide “Day in the Classroom” essay contest. Her mom taught her the word “cocky” in the context of “don’t be,” but she went on to win the essay contest and a $100 bill. By the end of third grade she had penned (and illustrated) more than half a dozen spiral bound books, had attended multiple Young Author’s Conventions, and had been awarded the school district’s highest honor for a poem about chess that strained the limitations of metaphor.
It was downhill from ther ...Read More
