Alison Cherry

Alison Cherry writes fiction for young readers, often using humor and unusual premises to examine belonging, friendship, and social pressure. Red, her 2013 debut novel from Delacorte Press, is set in Scarletville, a town where red hair determines status and the annual Miss Scarlet pageant dominates local life. Felicity St. John appears to fit the town’s ideal, but her carefully maintained hair color conceals a secret that changes how she understands her family and community. Cherry gives the invented beauty hierarchy practical consequences through pageant preparation, school relationships, and Felicity’s interest in art. Before publishing fiction, Cherry studied photography at Harvard and built a professional career behind the camera, experience that suits a novel concerned with appearances and how images shape judgment. Her later books range across middle-grade stories and fiction for older teens, while Red establishes her interest in comic situations that reveal the cost of conformity and the difficulty of acting fairly when social approval is at stake.