Catherine Atkins

Catherine Atkins taught for years in alternative education programmes in Northern California, with students ranging from primary age to adults. Atkins was born in San Francisco and grew up near Merced, close enough to remember Steven Stayner, the local boy taken in 1972 who came home in 1980; she has said the case was the spark and not the story, and that it mattered to her to make her own characters and their circumstances quite different. Her first novel, When Jeff Comes Home, was published by Putnam in 1999. Jeff is taken from a highway rest stop and returned by his captor more than two years later, and the book stays with the silence he keeps at home and at school afterwards. Atkins drafted it first in his sister's voice, then handed the narration to Jeff, a change she described as liberating. It was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Booklist Top Ten First Novel. Alt Ed came in 2003, with The File on Angelyn Stark following in 2011.