This author couldn’t read till she was 14

Patricia Polacco was in her 40s when she took a trip to New York City, bankrolled by her mother, to try to sell her first children’s book. By day, she would meet with publishers. By night, she and her mother would walk to the stables in Central Park, touch the horses and even collect their manure – a Russian custom for good luck.

On their walk back to their hotel they would pass a bookstore, and her mother would say, “Oh, Tricia, do you think we’ll see one of your books in that window?”