Ann Nolan Clark

Born Anna Marie Nolan in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1896, she studied education at what is now New Mexico Highlands University and later married Thomas Patrick Clark. She spent much of her working life as a teacher with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, an experience that shaped both her classroom work and her writing.

Clark began creating books because she wanted children to see their own lives, languages, and traditions reflected on the page. Many of her stories drew on the Southwest and on Indigenous communities she knew through her teaching, and she became especially well known for In My Mother's House, a Caldecott Honor book, and Secret of the Andes, which won the 1953 Newbery Medal.

She remained a significant figure in American children's literature for decades, remembered as both an educator and an author who tried to write with respect for the children and communities she served. She died in 1995.