Cynthia Leitich Smith, "A Girl's Best Friend"

It’s December 5. Welcome back to the Kids’ Short Story Advent Calendar—a box set full of excitement and mystery for younger readers to enjoy on the days counting down to Christmas.

Learn more about today’s author:

Cynthia Leitich Smith is a New York Times–bestselling author of books for young readers, including Hearts Unbroken, which won the American Indian Library Association’s Youth Literature Award. Her 2021 releases are the middle-grade anthology Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids and novel Sisters of the Neversea. She is also the author-curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint at HarperCollins Children’s Books, and the Katherine Paterson Inaugural Endowed Chair on the faculty of the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Cynthia is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation and lives in Austin, Texas.

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