An Author Study

Born in Dallas, Texas May 5, 1963 Both parents were from Texas Father was a computer programmer Westerfeld graduated from Vassar College in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy Early career as a composer

In the 1980s, Scott Westerfeld moved to New York, which inspired his first book, Polymorph. He has written a total of eighteen novels; five for adults and thirteen for young adults.

 Many of Westerfeld’s young adult novels are arranged into series, and he is most well- known for his Uglies series  Each of the books in this series has been a New York Times Bestseller

Uglies is set in a future world in which everyone has an operation when they turn sixteen, making them supermodel beautiful. Big eyes, full lips, no one too fat or too skinny. You might think this is a good thing, but it’s not. Especially if you’re one of the Smokies, a bunch of radical teens who’ve decided they want to keep their own faces.

The follow up to Uglies in which the main character, Tally, has finally turned pretty. She struggles with an unnamable something that makes everything seem not quite right. She fights to regain the memories of her past, and to figure out who she is in time to save both the pretties AND the uglies.

The third book in the series focuses on the elite group, the Specials. In Specials, Tally has become an elite fighting machine, fully enhanced with nanotechnology and super-fast reflexes, and made to work as a Special Circumstances agent for the city that she fled. As in the first two books, much of the story takes place with characters whizzing through the air on hoverboards, but Tally and her friends are in for some harsh realities here.

Extras is a companion to the first three novels, and it is told from a different point of view. It's a few years after the end of Tally’s story. The world is in a complete cultural renaissance,and it's all monitored on a bazillion different cameras. The world is like a gigantic game of American Idol. Whoever is getting the most buzz gets the most votes. Popularity rules.

Polymorph (1997) Fine Prey (1998) Evolution's Darling (2000) So Yesterday (2004) The Risen Empire (2003) The Killing of Worlds (2003) Midnighters series: The Secret Hour (2004) Touching Darkness (2005) Blue Noon (2006) Peeps series: Peeps The Last Days Leviathan series: Leviathan (2009) Behemoth (2010) Goliath (2011) The Manual of Aeronautics (2012)

 Evolution's Darling was a New York Times Notable Book (2000), and won a Special Citation for the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award.  So Yesterday won a Victorian Premier's Award  The Secret Hour won an Aurealis Award.  Peeps and Uglies were both named as "Best Books for Young Adults" 2006 by the American Library Association  Behemoth won a 2010 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Fiction  Leviathan was nominated for an ORCA (Oregon Reader's Choice Award) in the intermediate division