Martina the Beautiful Cockroach

Award-winning children's book author and storyteller Carmen Agra Deedy was born in Havana, Cuba in 1960. She immigrated to the United States with her family in 1963 and grew up in Decatur, Georgia.

Deedy has written Agatha's Feather Bed: Not Just Another Wild Goose Story, Tree Man, The Library Dragon, The Last Dance, The Secret of Old Zeb, The Yellow Star, and Fourteen Cows for America. She has also contributed to National Public Radio's Weekend All Things Considered and Latino USA.

Deedy has performed as a storyteller at venues including the Disney Institute, the New Victory Theater, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Kennedy Center and also at the St. Louis Storytelling Festival, the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, the National Storytelling Festival, the Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival, the National Book Festival, schools, conferences, and museums.

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