Former Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis grew up in Gary, Indiana and earned a BA at Saint Joseph’s College, an MA at Indiana University, and a PhD in economics at the Ohio State University. Lewis taught in the department of Business, Accounting and Economics at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio until 1998 when he became a full-time writer. Lewis is the author of more than 50 books of poetry for children, which find their shape in both free and formal verse and engage a wide range of subjects from history to mathematics, Russian folklore to the animal kingdom. His children’s poetry has been widely anthologized, and his contributions to children’s literature have been recognized with the 2011 Poetry Award from the National Council of Teachers of English and the Ohioana Awards’ 2004 Alice Louise Wood Memorial Prize, among others. Lewis served as the nation’s third Children’s Poet Laureate, now called the Young People’s Poet Laureate, from 2011 to 2013. He lives in Westerville, Ohio. Source