Robert Newton Peck

Robert Newton Peck is an American author of books for young adults. His titles include Soup and A Day No Pigs Would Die. He claims to have been born on February 17, 1928, in Vermont, but has refused to specify where. Similarly, he claims to have graduated from a high school in Texas, which he has also refused to identify. Some sources state that he was born in Nashville, Tennessee (supposedly where his mother was born), though other sources indicate she was born in Ticonderoga, New York, and that Peck, himself, may have been born there. The only reasonably certain Vermont connection is that his father was born in Cornwall.

Peck has written over sixty books.

He was a smart student, although his schooling was cut short by World War II. During and shortly after the conflict, he served as a machine-gunner in the U.S. Army 88th Infantry Division. Upon returning to the United States, he entered Rollins College, graduating in 1953. He then entered Cornell Law School, but never finished his course of study.

Newton married Dorothy Anne Houston and fathered two children, Anne and Christopher. The best man at the wedding and the godfather to the children was Fred Rogers of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood fame.

A Day No Pigs Would Die was his first novel, published in 1972 when he was already 44 years old. From then on he continued his lifelong journey through literature. To date, he has been credited for writing 53 fiction books, 5 nonfiction books, 35 songs, 3 television specials and over a hundred poems.

In 1993, Peck was diagnosed with oral cancer, but survived. As of 2005, he was living in Longwood, Florida.

Selected bibliography

Non-fiction

• Fiction is Folks: How to Create Unforgettable Characters (1983)

Fiction

• Soup (1974)

External links

• Author's homepage
• partial bibliography at 20th-century-history-books.com