Benette Whitmore

Children's author and television writer Benette Whitmore (www.benettewhitmore.com) was born in Syracuse, New York, on December 17, 1955. She is author of seven children's books, including:

A Quilt for Elizabeth (Centering Corp.) The Little Shoe Book (Random House) Real Stuck, Way Up (Barron's) Ghost Bat in a Gum Tree (Falcon Press) Shelter (Walker & Co./Bloomsbury USA) Pappyland Activity Book, Volumes I and II (Craftsman & Scribes)

She wrote 36 episodes of the children's television show, Pappyland, which aired in 165 markets nation wide, including PBS and The Learning Channel.

Benette attended college at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Her major at Queen's was sociology, with a minor in psychology, and she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1977. She has a master's degree in Public Relations Management from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Benette was Public Relations Director for Cazenovia College in Cazenovia, New York. She was also Publications Director for Sargent-Webster-Crenshaw & Folley, an architectural-engineering firm in Syracuse that had offices throughout the Northeast. Her responsibilities included writing press releases and preparing promotional and marketing materials, such as proposals, reports, brochures, video productions, and poster presentations. Benette was a video producer for Community General Hospital in Syracuse. She wrote and recorded video used for patient education, and she co-managed the hospital's closed circuit television station.

It was during her five years there that she wrote her first four children's books and made the decision to return to teaching at the college level. She taught a class in Writing for Children at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, and then began teaching writing at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) and Syracuse University. She has also received the Outstanding Teaching Award in 1999 and the President's Award for Community Service in 2003.

Benette is pursuing a doctoral degree in Cultural Studies at Syracuse University's School of Education. Her dissertation is an ethnographic study of the children's book section at Barnes & Noble, looking at areas of consumerism/consumption, diversity, and the family outing.

Benette has a son, Eli, and a daughter, Kallie.