Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Katherine Paterson
What do you want to be when you grow up? When Katherine Paterson was ten she wanted to be a movie star. She also wanted to be a missionary. When she was twenty, she wanted to be a wife and a mother. She wanted to have lots of kids. Interestingly, she never wanted to be a writer. Yet that is what she became.
Mrs. Paterson was the daughter of Christian missionaries. Her parents worked in China. Katherine was born there in 1932. Due to her father's work, her family moved a lot. By the time Katherine was 18, her family had moved 18 times!
After high school Katherine attended King's College in Bristol, Tennessee. Then before earning her master's degree, she spent one year teaching school. She taught at a rural school in northern Virginia. The students there became very special to Katherine. Some of her novels would eventually be based on the children she met that year.
