Katherine Applegate was born in Michigan on July 19, 1956. She writes science fiction, young adult romances, and pop-up books. She is the author of the Making Waves, Making Out, and Roscoe Riley Rules series. She writes the Animorphs, Everworld, and Remnants series under the pen name K. A. Applegate. She also writes under the pen names of C. Archer, Catherine Kendall and Elizabeth Benning. She has received numerous awards including a Golden Duck Award (Eleanor Cameron Award for Middle Grades) for The Message in 1997, the SCBWI 2008 Golden Kite Award for Best Fiction and the Bank Street 2008 Josette Frank Award for Home of the Brave, and the 2013 Newbery Medal and the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award (Illinois) for The One and Only Ivan.