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© 2008 Teresa Funke
Hi Kids!
Thank you for visiting my website! I hope you're enjoying reading my books and learning more about World War II. And I hope you're finding it interesting that my books are based on real people. There are so many fascinating people out there in the world. Sometimes they even live under our own roofs. I found that out when I was about 13 and a teacher asked us to interview one of our grandparents. I chose my mother's mother and she told me fascinating stories about growing up in Mexico and seeing Poncho Villa. Someday I want to write a book about her stories. Kids often ask me when I knew I wanted to be a writer. When I was in fifth grade, my English teacher gave us an assignment to write a poem. For some reason, getting that poem just right became very important to me. I stayed up past my bedtime to make it perfect. But when the teacher handed back our papers, she said to me, “Teresa, you need to do this assignment again. You did not write this poem. I think you copied it.” On the one hand, I was terribly embarrassed. She accused me of cheating in front of the whole class. But on the other hand, I was proud because I realized I must have produced a pretty good poem if she didn’t believe I wrote it. That’s when I first realized I might just be good at writing.
I kept working hard at my writing assignments throughout junior high and high school. I even had a couple of small works published in our school district’s magazine, and my teachers nominated me to attend the Young Writer’s Conference. When I went to college, I decided to study history so I could write about things that had happened in the past. Since I was ten, history has been my favorite subject. Writing has always been a part of my life and now it’s fun to be able to share my words with kids all over the country.
Meet The Real Home-Front Heroes
Meet the real Helen Marshall from Doing My Part, Shirley Brand, here.
School Visits
Fourth grade students enjoying a school visit from Teresa.
Photo by the Fort Collins Regional Library District