Patricia Polacco was born July 11, 1944, in Lansing, Michigan, to parents of Russian and Ukrainian descent on one side, and Irish on the other.  When she was three, her parents divorced, and each moved back in with their parents.  Polacco spent the school year with her mother and the summers with her father.  She describes her family members as marvelous storytellers.  “My fondest memories are of sitting around a stove or open fire, eating apples and popping corn while listening to the old ones tell glorious stories about their homeland and the past.  We are tenacious traditionalists and sentimentalists….With each retelling, our stories gain a little more Umph!”   

As a child Polacco had dyslexia and had trouble in school; she didn’t learn to read until she was fourteen years old. As a result she developed her drawing and illustrating skills. Polacco attended Ohio State University and earned a Master's Degree in Fine Arts and a Ph.D. in Art History.  For a while she worked at restoring ancient pieces for museums.  Later she had two children and devoted her time to raising and educating them.  At age 41 she became an author and illustrator of children’s books; the subjects of which are all based on the stories she heard as a child, and about her own childhood experiences. 

Polacco currently lives in Michigan near her childhood home.

Sources:

http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-polacco-patricia.asp

http://www.patriciapolacco.com/

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/polacco.htm

http://www.ipl.org/div/askauthor/polaccobio.html