Emily Neville

Born in Manchester, Connecticut, in 1919, Emily Cheney Neville was an American author who graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1940. She began publishing books for young readers in the early 1960s and quickly gained national attention.

Her first book, It’s Like This, Cat (1963), won the 1964 Newbery Medal and remains her best-known work. She went on to write other novels for children and young adults, including Berries Goodman and Traveler from a Small Kingdom, with stories often shaped by family memories, contemporary settings, and an easy, conversational style.

Neville died in 1997. She is remembered for helping bring a more modern, believable tone to children’s literature, especially through characters whose lives felt ordinary, funny, and true.