Hamlet Chronicles

“Hamlet Chronicles” is a series of children’s novels by American author Gregory Maguire who is best known for his revisionist works of children stories. The debut novel of the “Hamlet Chronicles” was the 1994 published title “Seven Spiders Spinning” that was so popular that it spawned six more titles culminating in “One Final Firecracker” that came out in 2005. Gregory was born in New York as the fourth child of seven siblings. He went to a Catholic high school before proceeding to State University of New York, where he got his bachelor in English, Simmons College for his master in Children’s Literature, and Tufts University for his doctorate in American Literature and English. From 1979 to 1986 he served as co director and professor at the Department for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College. He has been a board member and co-founder of several children’s and literary organizations including the Concord Free Press, the Boston Public Library, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and National Children’s Book and Literary Alliance. He published his first children’s novel “The Lightning Time” in 1978 aged only 24 and has never looked back, going on to write over twenty novels and short stories. He has lectured all over the world on culture and literature and is a contributor and reviewer with the Sunday New York Times Book Review. He lives with husband Andy Newman a painter and their three adopted children in Boston Massachusetts.