Background
Helen Frost was born on March 4, 1949, in South Dakota, United States. She is the fifth child in a family of ten children.
Syracuse, NY, United States
Helen Frost studied Elementary Education at Syracuse University, earning a Bachelor of Arts.
107 S Indiana Ave, Bloomington, IN 47405, United States
Helen Frost graduated from Indiana University, with a Master of Arts in 1994.
Helen Frost was awarded the Michael Printz Honor Book Award from American Library Association in 2004 for Keesha's House.
Helen Frost was awarded the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award in 2007 for The Braid.
Helen Frost holds one of her books.
(A collection of writings and poems centered around the ec...)
A collection of writings and poems centered around the ecology of Alaska's Prince William Sound. The tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, spilling its cargo of about 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. These writings are concerned with the after-effects of that spill.
https://www.amazon.com/Season-Dead-Water-Helen-Frost/dp/0932576826/?tag=2022091-20
1990
(In the spring of 1998 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, students of...)
In the spring of 1998 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, students of six public high schools were asked to write stories in response to the question, "Have you ever been personally affected by violence?" The stories included in this book represent the range of experience and emotion they shared.
https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Seems-Light-People-Violence/dp/1877603589/?tag=2022091-20
1998
(Describes and identifies various bird eggs by their size,...)
Describes and identifies various bird eggs by their size, color, and pattern, including those of the American robin, the common loon, a cardinal, ostrich, owl, and a blue jay.
https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Eggs-Birds-Helen-Frost/dp/0736802231/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(Describes the nests of various types of birds and the mat...)
Describes the nests of various types of birds and the materials used to build them, including the grass and twig nests of robins, the moss and spider web nests of hummingbirds, and the big stick nests of eagles.
https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Nests-Birds-Helen-Frost/dp/0736802258/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(Describes the basic structure of teeth including enamel, ...)
Describes the basic structure of teeth including enamel, gums, and roots, plus it explains the various types of teeth such as incisors, canine teeth, and molars. Baby teeth and permanent teeth are also discussed.
https://www.amazon.com/Teeth-Dental-Health-Helen-Frost/dp/0736801154/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(A look at a dentist's office, including the equipment, fo...)
A look at a dentist's office, including the equipment, found there, what the dentist does during a typical check-up, and explains what a cavity is.
https://www.amazon.com/Going-Dentist-Dental-Health-Helen/dp/0736801146/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(Describes how to brush your teeth, from putting the tooth...)
Describes how to brush your teeth, from putting the toothpaste on the brush to swishing water in your mouth and spitting at the end.
https://www.amazon.com/Brushing-Dental-Health-Helen-Frost/dp/0736848592/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(Simple text and photographs present the foods that are pa...)
Simple text and photographs present the foods that are part of the meat and protein group and their nutritional importance.
https://www.amazon.com/Meat-Protein-Group-Guide-Pyramid/dp/0736805397/?tag=2022091-20
2000
(Simple text and photographs explain Independence Day, how...)
Simple text and photographs explain Independence Day, how and why we celebrate it to honor the founding of the United States.
https://www.amazon.com/Independence-National-Holidays-Helen-Frost/dp/0736805427/?tag=2022091-20
2000
(The author draws on her experience working with at-risk y...)
The author draws on her experience working with at-risk youth to provide teachers with writing exercises on poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and drama, including advice on creating a safe environment for students to write on personal and emotional topics.
https://www.amazon.com/When-Whisper-Nobody-Listens-Difficult/dp/0325003521/?tag=2022091-20
2001
Helen Frost was born on March 4, 1949, in South Dakota, United States. She is the fifth child in a family of ten children.
Helen Frost studied Elementary Education at Syracuse University, earning a Bachelor of Arts. She later graduated from Indiana University, with a Master of Arts in 1994.
Helen Frost built her career as an educator and author. At Kilquhanity House School, Scotland, she served as a teacher from 1976 to 1978. She later became an elementary school teacher/principal in Telida, Alaska (then Ketchikan, Alaska), from 1981 to 1984. At Indiana University and also at Purdue University at Fort Wayne, Frost was an instructor. From 1995 to 2006, Helen Frost was a member of the interdisciplinary artistic team in Fort Wayne Dance Collective.
In addition to Frost's work as a teacher - she has taught students in Scotland, Vermont, and Alaska, as well as Indiana and, as a poet-in-residence, throughout the United States - Helen Frost is a poet and playwright as well as a prolific author of fiction and nonfiction for young readers. Frost's fictional works include the Michael J. Printz's young-adult honor book Keesha's House as well as middle-grade novels such as Diamond Willow and the historical novel The Braid. Drawing on her experiences as a classroom teacher, Frost's numerous nonfiction contributions to informative series for elementary-grade students reflect her varied interests in science and history. In addition to writing for young people, Frost is also the author of When I Whisper, Nobody Listens: Helping Young People Write about Difficult Issues, a book that Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy contributor M.P. Cavanaugh explained is designed to "prepare teachers to work with students on sensitive issues and to provide nonviolent solutions to some of their problems."
Frost's Keesha's House, a novel-in-poems for older readers, focuses on seven inner-city teens whose lives are in turmoil until they find refuge in a home owned by a caring adult named Joe. Dubbed "Keesha's House" in honor of the first person to be welcomed there, Joe's home becomes a haven for pregnant teen Stephie, also Katie, who is escaping her stepfather's sexual molestation, Keesha herself, whose father becomes violent with his children after their mother dies, and several others. Praised as a "moving" work containing "dramatic monologues that are personal, poetic, and immediate" by Booklist contributor Hazel Rochman, Keesha's House features sonnet and sestina verse forms that reflect contemporary speech, making the book easy going for those unfamiliar with poetry.
A book that "brings to life the voices and spirit of a fifth-grade classroom," according to a Publishers Weekly contributor, Spinning through the Universe: A Novel in Poems from Room 214 contains verses that reflect the dreams, worries, enthusiasms, and day-to-day lives of Missis Williams's fifth-grade class. Characterized by the Publishers Weekly critic as "brief, deceptively casual poetic monologues," these poems are followed by a concluding chapter about reading and writing poetry. School Library Journal contributor Lee Bockdubbed Spinning through the Universe a "boon for poetry classes," while in Kirkus Reviews a critic wrote that Frost's use of "original imagery and understated, natural voices make these poems sensitive and insightful."
Frost moves from the present to the past in The Braid, transporting readers across the Atlantic to Scotland and back through time to the mid-nineteenth century. In Frost's evocative narrative poems, teenaged sisters Jeannie and Sarah speak of life on the remote island of Barra, in the Scottish Hebrides. The historic backdrop of the novel - the Highland Clearances - are not familiar to many North American readers, explained Janis Flint-Ferguson in her Kliatt review, and Frost's novel "gives voice to the tragic circumstances that populated Nova Scotia, Canada." In these tales, Frost interweaves "themes of home, shelter, and heritage, as well as the yearning for family wherever one lives," according to Rochman in Booklist.
While Frost has become well known for her novels-in-poems for older readers, she has also written numerous series of early-reader nonfiction: short books presenting basic facts and information in a minimal text well-illustrated with photographs, maps, diagrams, and other artwork. With approximately twenty sentences per book, volumes such as A Look at France in the "Our World" series, and What Are Levers? in the "Looking at Simple Machines" series, were written to appeal to beginning scholars and use simple vocabulary to convey rudimentary information.
With her varied experiences as a teacher of at-risk students, Frost encourages teachers and librarians to recognize the value of both reading and writing poetry to young adults. "I bet half the teenagers I know have notebooks…," she explained to School Library Journal contributor Rick Margolis. "When I meet a group of ten kids, I can almost guarantee that one of them is going to say, 'I'm a poet,' and bring in reams of poems the next week. And if I ask, ‘How many of you like to write poetry?’ at least half of them will say they do."
(In the spring of 1998 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, students of...)
1998(The author draws on her experience working with at-risk y...)
2001(Describes the nests of various types of birds and the mat...)
1999(Describes and identifies various bird eggs by their size,...)
1999(Describes the basic structure of teeth including enamel, ...)
1999(A look at a dentist's office, including the equipment, fo...)
1999(Outlines some of the reasons that water is necessary for ...)
2000(Text and photographs present the five senses, hearing, ta...)
2000(Describes how to brush your teeth, from putting the tooth...)
1999(Simple text and photographs explain Independence Day, how...)
2000(Simple text and photographs present the foods that are pa...)
2000(Describes the development of baby birds after they hatch,...)
1999(An introduction to the stages a caterpillar goes through ...)
1999(Simple text and photographs present the foods that are pa...)
2000(Simple text and photographs explain Presidents' Day and w...)
2000(Simple text and photographs show fats, oils, and sugary f...)
2000(Simple text and photographs present the foods that are pa...)
2000(Simple text and photographs present the foods that are pa...)
2000(Simple text and photographs present the foods that are pa...)
2000(An introduction to the physical characteristics and behav...)
1999(Simple text, photographs, and diagrams introduce the resp...)
2001(An introduction to where and how butterflies lay their eg...)
1999(A simple text presents facts about water in its liquid st...)
2000(Simple text, photographs, and diagrams introduce the nerv...)
2001(Text and photographs presents facts about the properties ...)
2000(Describes some examples of things that make children expe...)
2001(Simple text and photographs describe the food guide pyram...)
2000(Explains how and why Memorial Day came to be celebrated a...)
2000(Text and photographs describe and illustrate the feeling ...)
2001(A collection of writings and poems centered around the ec...)
1990(Text and photographs present facts about water in its sol...)
2000(Simple text and photographs introduce the muscular system...)
2001(Text and photographs show what water does in the body and...)
2000(Details healthy foods that make teeth strong including mi...)
1999(Text and photographs present the sense of hearing and how...)
2000(Text and photographs present the sense of seeing and how ...)
2000(Introduces the various parts of the digestive system and ...)
2001(Text and photographs present the sense of smell and how i...)
2000(Text and photographs present the sense of touch and how i...)
2000(Text and photographs describe and illustrate anger and wa...)
2001(Text and photographs describe and illustrate happiness an...)
2001(Simple text and photographs present the work of Martin Lu...)
2000(Introduces the circulatory system, its purpose, parts, an...)
2001(Examines the colors and patterns of various butterfly wings.)
1999(Text and photographs describe the stages of the water cycle.)
2000Helen Frost married Chad Thompson in 1983. They have two children - Lloyd, a stepson, and Glen.