Mélina Mangal was born in France and grew up in the Midwest. She has lived in Wisconsin, Michigan, France, North Carolina, and Minnesota. She has written four biographies for young people. Virginia Hamilton (Real-Life Reader Biography series), Rita Williams-Garcia ( Blue Banner Biography series), and Storytellers: Mildred Taylor were published by Mitchell Lane. Anne Hutchinson: Religious Reformer was released by Capstone Press as part of their "Let Freedom Ring" series.

Mélina's short stories "The Long Bike Ride,” "Cranberry Cove," and “Welcoming the Waves” appear in Milkweed's anthologies: Stories From Where We Live.

Mélina works as an elementary school media specialist. She enjoys traveling with her husband and daughter, using ideas and images from her voyages, her own childhood, and her students' lives to shape her stories.

Stories From Where We Live: 
the South Atlantic Coast and Piedmont
edited by Sara St. Antoine
Milkweed Editions, 2006
Ages 8 and up, ISBN 978-1-57131-664-6

The latest in the Stories from Where We Live series of literary field guides for kids and families who love both literature and the outdoors includes a story by Mélina Mangal.

The South has always celebrated its heritage. This book for kids and families focuses on the region’s natural heritage, from Maryland to Florida, and from the coast to the foothills of the Appalachians. The book’s stories, poems, essays, and historical accounts were specifically chosen because they feature the region’s habitats (from hilly farms to bottomland forests, from churning rivers to marshes to barrier islands), plants, animals, and weather.

Mildred Taylor
Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2004
ISBN 978-1-58415-311-5, Ages 9-12

Mildred Taylor was a quiet and shy girl. She loved to daydream and read. She loved to read so much, she hid wherever she could to read without interruptions. Sometimes she even read in the closet! Mildred also loved to hear the stories told by her parents and her aunts and uncles. When she tried to tell her classmates about some of those stories, they wouldn't believe her. This was during the time in U.S. history known as segregation. Mildred's white classmates couldn't believe the brutal or heroic details she recounted. This didn't stop Mildred. She decided she would tell her true stories about strong and courageous African Americans. She would become a writer.

Rita Williams-Garcia
Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2004
ISBN 978-1-58415-217-0, Ages 9-12

Rita Williams-Garcia was writing even before she went to school. Rita wrote adventure stories that featured her brother and sister and herself. Rita wrote rhyming poetry. And she wrote in a journal.

Although she published her first story at a young age, Rita pursued other interests, like dance. She became a dancer and even formed her own dance company before realizing that writing was what she was meant to do.

Stories From Where We Live: 
the North Atlantic Coast
edited by Sara St. Antoine
Milkweed Editions, 2001
Ages 8 and up, ISBN 978-1-57131-627-1

Netting crabs on the New Jersey shore, ice-boating in Maine, raking for quahogs at low tide along Cape Cod, playing beneath majestic oak trees in Bridgeport, Connecticut: These are among the many encounters with nature and place captured in Stories from Where We Live—The North Atlantic Coast. Mélina's short story, "Cranberry Cove," is included in these pages.

Stories From Where We Live: 
the California Coast
edited by Sara St. Antoine
illustrations by Trudy Nicholson
Milkweed Editions, 2001
ISBN 978-1-57131-653-0

Stretching from the California-Oregon border south to the Baja peninsula, the California Coast is often called the Mediterranean of North America because of its unique climate, landscape, and geology. This book brings the region alive through historical and contemporary stories, poems, letters, essays, and memoirs. The book tells of surfers facing sharks in the Red Triangle, the Pigeon Express that once carried the news from the Channel Islands, and a notorious stagecoach driver who turned out to be a woman. Mélina's short story, "The Long Bike Ride," is included.

Through stories such as a young actress's fascination with the La Brea tar pits and a young boy's rescue of a sea otter, the book reveals what makes life along the California Coast different and special.

Anne Hutchinson
Capstone Press, 2004
ISBN 978-0-7368-2454-5, Ages 8-14

The story of a woman who not only was the mother of 15 children, but also became a religious reformer and early advocate for women's rights.

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