Margaret Jean Anderson
Personal Information
Description
Margaret Jean Anderson was born in Gorebridge, Scotland, a small mining town where her father was the Presbyterian minister. She was raised in Lockerbie, Scotland, where her childhood was characterized by freedom to wander through fields and woods close to her family home. She and her brother and sister caught fish and tadpoles, picked wildflowers, created their own museum of insects and flora, and mapped the nearby marsh. She studied biology and genetics at Edinburgh University, then worked as a statistician. She met her husband at a biological research laboratory in Canada, married, and moved to the U.S., settling in Corvalis, Oregon. After having four children, she took up writing, first writing nonfiction. She wrote articles for the magazines Ranger Rick and Nature and Science, and a book on insects. Then she began to write fiction as well, and published several novels before eventually making her way back to nonfiction. She co-authored three Nature Discovery books with her daughter Karen Stephenson. She has also written several biographies.
Books
Food chains
This book helps readers to understand some of the amazing natural phenomena in the world around them. The series introduces patterns and cycles that take place in nature using a range of examples from around the world.
Carl Linnaeus
Profiles the life of the eighteenth-century Swedish naturalist whose scientific naming of plants and animals provided an international language of nature.
The Ghost Inside the Monitor
Sarah is sucked into computing--literally--when she encounters the ghost of a nineteenth-century girl named Pascale in her computer's monitor, a ghost who desperately seeks Sarah's assistance in solving the mystery of her disappearance.
The Druid's Gift
Given the gift of seeing the future, a young girl, living on the tiny and remote island of Hirta at the time of the Druids, is able to travel forward in time and experience some of the important events that shape the history of her island home.
The mists of time
In the twenty-second century in a land that was once Scotland, a group of gentle people, who believe in love, trust, and sharing, encounter several people from the twentieth century and are also invaded by Barbaric Ones from the south. Sequel to "In the Keep Of Time" and "In the Circle of Time."
Light in the Mountain
Saved from being sacrificed alive to the angry volcano, eight-year-old Rana transcends the evil schemes of the tribesman who "saves" her and leads her people to a new life in the distant Land of the Long White Cloud.
The brain on Quartz Mountain
Dave's role in Professor Botti's experiment on a chicken's brain helps him compete for a trip to the World Series.
The Journey of the Shadow Bairns
From the review on Barnes & Noble: "Elspeth MacDonald would remember her mother’s dying words. Take care of wee Rob. You mustn’t let them take him away. You are to stay together. . . .Do you understand. . . ? Elspeth hadn’t understood at the time—who would want to take her brother away? But the meaning of her mother’s plea became frightening clear when Elspeth learned what their lives as orphans in Scotland would be. A place would be found for her to work as a maid; her little brother would be put in an orphanage. “We are to stay together,” Elspeth told the unhearing social worker. And they would stay together as she had promised her mother. They would run away. . . . And so on the last day of March in the year 1903, thirteen-year-old Elspeth and four-year-old Robbie MacDonald joined the Barr Colonists on a ship leaving Liverpool, England. Hidden in the overcrowded ship heading for Canada, they became children of the shadows—the Shadow Bairns."
In the circle of time
Two children are hurled into the future as a result of their hunt for three 12-foot stones missing from an ancient Scottish stone circle.
Searching for Shona
During the evacuation of children from Edinburgh in the early days of World War II, shy, wealthy Margaret on her way to relatives in Canada trades places and identities with the orphaned Shona bound for the Scottish countryside.
In the keep of time
Four children slip into the past and then the future while exploring an ancient Scottish tower.
Exploring city trees and the need for urban forests
Describes the many ways in which trees contribute to the city environment and suggests experiments and activities for exploring these contributions throughout the year.
To nowhere and back
Elizabeth, an avowed realist, finds herself able to move in and out of the mind and body of a girl who lived one hundred years earlier.
Exploring the insect world
Experiments and projects reveal the physical characteristics and behavior of a variety of insects.
Charles Darwin
Describes the life and work of the renowned nineteenth-century biologist who transformed conventional Western thought with his theory of natural evolution.
Discovering Black Bears
Discovering Black Bears is a nature activity book that explores the natural history of the American black bear, its behavior and habitat. It also covers bear-human conflicts and how problems can be resolved. This engaging book, aimed at children of all ages, introduces the reader to real-life bear biologists, who have new insights into bear behavior. Discovering Black Bears has full color illustrations, a sheet of black bear stickers, and contains 20 activities designed to challenge children’s minds. Discovering Black Bears has won the Mom's Choice Award and was a Foreword Magazine Finalist for Book of the Year in both Nature and Hobbies.