John volunteering at an Austin Marathon water station in 2013.
ABOUT JOHN
John Bibee (Jan. 2, 1954 – Nov. 17, 2018) was an American children’s book writer. He is the author of two series geared toward young readers, The Spirit Flyer Series and The Home School Detectives Series. His books have been read during children’s story hours broadcast on radio stations across the country, and several have won awards from Christian Home & School magazine.
Bibee was born in Delaware and subsequently spent his childhood years in Florida, Missouri, and Colorado, in which his father worked as a horticulturist, before moving back to Delaware when he was in the 8th grade. His mother was an elementary school teacher and reading specialist and instilled in Bibee a love for reading, while his passion to write was kindled during the 8th grade by a very special English teacher, Mr. Norman Reynolds.
John finished high school in Delaware a year early and went off to college at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. Nothing about John’s life was conventional—starting with the fact that he moved over twenty times during his college years before finally graduating Magna Cum Laude with high honors with a Bachelor’s in English from San Diego State University in 1979. He was selected as Outstanding Student of the Campus for his graduating class.
Through the years, John worked in a variety of settings in order to pursue his dream of writing inspiring children’s stories. He held many different jobs at different times (teacher, photographer, technical writer, etc.); however, his passion was always for his creative work. Probably his most well-known book, The Magic Bicycle, was written during a year spent abroad with his wife Cindy in Peru. It was the fifth novel that John wrote, but the first to see publication in 1983 by InterVarsity Press, followed by seven other novels in The Spirit Flyer Series. He also authored another eight mystery novels in The Home School Detectives Series.
The geography and lifestyle of north central Missouri, especially the small towns and rural areas, form the setting for his stories. Bibee engages the imaginations of his readers through fantastical, adventurous tales and leads them into the Deeper World, a place where children play an important role in the struggle between good and evil.