Alida Allison, PhD

Alida Allison was born in Brooklyn, New York, had a happy childhood in Palm Springs, California, and undertook three different majors as an undergrad at SDSU in the 1960s before dropping out to spend two years hitchhiking to India. In the early 1970s, she and her husband worked for the American Friends Service Committee (Quaker Service) as Hong Kong Representatives, traveling frequently to wartime Vietnam. She received a degree in English with a specialty in Creative Writing from SDSU in the early 1980s, at the same time she was writing children's books. Doctoral study in Comparative Literature was completed in 1990 at UC Riverside, the same year she began teaching at SDSU as a children's/YA literature specialist. In addition to articles and conference presentations, she has published three academic books, on academic publishing, on the children's stories of I.B. Singer, and on Russell Hoban's writings for children. Dr. Allison is married and has two sons. For other information, go to the Children's Literature website.