Erin Entrada Kelly Books in Order

If you want the book most readers start with: Hello, Universe → You Go First → We Dream of Space
If you want family stories with a lot of heart: The Land of Forgotten Girls → Hello, Universe → Those Kids from Fawn Creek
If you want adventure, fantasy, or a twist of science fiction: Lalani of the Distant Sea → The First State of Being → The Last Resort
If you want something lighter for younger readers: Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey → Surely Surely Marisol Rainey → Only Only Marisol Rainey

Erin Entrada Kelly is a Filipina American writer who grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her mother immigrated from the Philippines, and Kelly has often spoken about how different she felt as a child in a small Southern town where not many families looked like hers. That mix of loneliness, humor, and sharp observation runs through much of what she writes.

It also helps explain why so many of her books notice the quiet kid in the room.

She was a big reader early on, and she started writing when she was still a kid herself, around eight years old. She has said that once she understood books were something a person could actually make, she wanted in. Judy Blume was a huge influence, and like a lot of future writers, she filled notebooks with stories long before publishing seemed realistic.

Later, family stories helped point her in a clearer direction. Kelly has said that her mother told her a story about her grandfather, and that pushed her to start writing short fiction rooted in Filipino characters and settings. Her first published story appeared in 2008, and that early work helped her see that the parts of her background she once tried to hide could become the center of her writing instead.

Before she was known for children's books, Kelly worked as a journalist and magazine editor in Louisiana. That job taught her to write on deadline and to pay attention to people, which feels important when you read her fiction. She earned a bachelor's degree from McNeese State University and later an MFA in fiction from Rosemont College.

Her first novel, Blackbird Fly, introduced a girl who feels out of place almost everywhere except in music. Then came The Land of Forgotten Girls, about sisters surviving grief, poverty, and an abusive home, and Hello, Universe, the warm, funny, tense story of several kids whose lives collide over a single day. Readers also tend to find a lot to love in You Go First, where an online friendship becomes a lifeline, and in Those Kids from Fawn Creek, which looks closely at gossip, class, and kindness in a very small town.

She writes a lot about lonely kids, because she remembers being one.

Kelly's range is wider than people sometimes expect. Lalani of the Distant Sea leans into myth and quest fantasy, We Dream of Space looks at sibling life in the shadow of the Challenger disaster, and The First State of Being mixes Y2K anxiety with time travel. She also writes for younger readers in the Marisol Rainey books, which are gentler, funnier, and just as emotionally tuned in. In 2025, The First State of Being won the Newbery Medal, giving Kelly her second Newbery win after Hello, Universe. We Dream of Space received a Newbery Honor, and her nonfiction book At Last She Stood later earned a Sibert Honor.

Across all those books, a few things keep showing up: kids who feel like outsiders, families that are loving but complicated, Filipino culture woven naturally into daily life, and the hope that friendship can make the world feel less lonely. Kelly now lives in Delaware, near Philadelphia, and teaches in the Writing for Young Readers graduate program at the University of San Francisco. Even with awards and a long list of books behind her, she still comes across as a writer interested in the same thing she loved as a child, making a world on the page and inviting someone else into it.