Gail Carson Levine is an American author of young adult books. Her first novel, Ella Enchanted, received a Newbery Honor in 1998. Levine grew up in New York City. She credits her parents David and Sylvia for her creative streak. Her father, whose childhood in an orphanage provided inspiration for her story Dave at Night, owned a commercial art studio, and her mother was a teacher who wrote plays for her students to perform. Her older sister, Rani, her senior by five years, became a painter.
