Ginger Wadsworth grew up in coastal Southern California where she enjoyed family outings at the beach and in the nearby mountains and desert. In the second grade, she joined Troop 695 as a Brownie. Scouting was a family activity and many parents and siblings joined the numerous, year-round outdoor activities.

After high school, Ginger attended the University of California at Davis where she earned a degree in English Literature with a minor in American History and Literature. She now lives in Northern California with her husband, Bill, who often travels with her to help research her various books. They have two adult sons and three grandchildren.

FIRST GIRL SCOUT: THE LIFE OF JULIETTE GORDON LOW is Ginger’s 25th non-fiction book for young readers. Daisy, as everyone called the founder of Girl Scouts, was feisty, fearless, and funny. This biography is being released in time for the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouts in the USA, and is dedicated to Ginger’s life-long friends from Troop 695.

Ginger likes to write about American heroines, including Annie Oakley, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, and other notable women. Her first published book, JULIA MORGAN, ARCHITECT OF DREAMS is a Social Studies Library International (SSLI) Best Book and National Council of Social Studies/Children’s Book Council (NCSS/CBC) Notable Trade Book. And her second book, RACHEL CARSON, VOICE FOR THE EARTH is a SSLI Best Book in Science.

Her science-themed books include DESERT DISCOVERIES, written from her vacation home in the Anza-Borrego Desert in Southern California. She has written about scientists and naturalists, including BENJAMIN BANNEKER, PIONEERING SCIENTIST and JOHN MUIR, WILDERNESS PROTECTOR. UP, UP, AND AWAY, a picture book about one garden spider‘s search for a safe home is a National Science Teachers Association/CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book.

Ginger admits to being both a research and a travel junkie. Her office overflows with files of facts, and she loves to visit libraries to peruse vintage hand-written letters, journals, articles, and archival images. To write WORDS WEST, VOICES OF YOUNG PIONEERS, winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award/Juvenile Nonfiction, she explored many of the covered wagon routes and stopped at forts, cemeteries, historical sites, and museums along the way. For FIRST GIRL SCOUT, she visited Savannah, New York, and even London to learn all she could about Daisy . . . Georgia’s beloved star, Juliette Gordon Low.