Anna Levine

Website: www.annalevine.org
Residence : Mevesseret Zion, Israel

Biographical information
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Levine's family moved to Montreal, Quebec when she was five. Levine spent her childhood in Montreal; at eighteen, she left home and moved to Israel to live on a kibbutz, where she learned to pick apples and work the fields. After a few long months and sore shoulders, she left the fields and went to work in the children's houses. When the war in Lebanon broke out in the 1980s, Levine continued to work with the children in the bomb shelters.

A few years after her first son was born, Anna Levine and her husband decided to leave the kibbutz and move to Jerusalem, where they could continue their studies. Levine graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, majoring in English literature. In 1989, her second son was born. Two years later, the family moved to San Diego, California, during which time she began writing for children. Levine's first publications were in magazines, including Spider, Highlights For Children, and Jack and Jill. Being away from Israel for those years helped give her the perspective she needed to begin her first novel, RUNNING ON EGGS, which was published in 1999 (Front Street/ Cricket Books). RUNNING ON EGGS is the story of a friendship between an Arab and Jewish girl in Israel--a country fraught with political tension.

Levine's second novel, also set in Israel, is an archaeological mystery.

When she's not writing, Anna Levine teaches at the Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem. She's the Co-International Advisor for The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Discussion topics

A Virtual Bus Tour of RUNNING ON EGGS--Through a power point presentation, Levine takes audiences on a ride across Israel and shows how her novel, poems, and short stories are products of her experiences living in Israel for twenty years. From working on a kibbutz picking apples to wandering the streets of Jerusalem, Levine's stories are about life in Israel from an insider's perspective, and the audience will get a feel of what it is like to live in the Middle East.

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