Early life and education
Montgomery was born on February 7, 1958, in Frankfurt, Germany, [1] [2] to Austin and Willa Montgomery. Her father was a brigadier general in the US Army; her mother was a pilot, who also worked for the FBI. [3] As a child she lived in Frankfurt; Brooklyn, New York; Alexandria, Virginia; and Westfield, New Jersey. She is a 1975 graduate of Westfield High School and a 1979 graduate of Syracuse University, a triple major with dual degrees in magazine journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and in French language and literature and in psychology from the College of Arts and Sciences. She has been awarded four honorary doctorate degrees: an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Keene State College in 2004 and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from both Franklin Pierce University and Southern New Hampshire University in 2011, and Lesley University. [4]
Career
She is author of 38 books, including The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness, which was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction [5] and was on The New York Times Best Seller list. Her popular book The Good Good Pig is the international bestselling memoir of life with her pig, Christopher Hogwood. [6] National best sellers listed on The New York Times Best Seller list include Of Time and Turtles, How To Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in 13 Animals, and Becoming a Good Creature (a picture book for children). [7] Other notable titles include Journey of the Pink Dolphins , Spell of the Tiger, and Search for the Golden Moon Bear . Her book for children, Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea was the recipient of the 2007 Orbis Pictus Award and was selected as an Honor book for the Sibert Medal. [8] Her book Kakapo Rescue: Saving The World's Strangest Parrot won the Sibert Medal in 2010. [9] She is the winner of the 2009 New England Independent Booksellers Association Nonfiction Award, the 2010 Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award, the Henry Bergh Award for Nonfiction (given by the ASPCA for Humane Education) and dozens of other honors. [10]
For a half-hour National Geographic segment, she scripted and appeared in Spell of the Tiger, based on her book of the same title. Also for National Geographic, she developed and scripted Mother Bear Man based on the work of Ben Kilham, who raises and releases orphaned American black bears, which won a Chris Award. [11]
Author Vicki Croke asked Sy what she has learned, not just about an animal's natural history, but lessons about life. Sy answered: "How to be a good creature. How do you be compassionate?… I think that animals teach compassion better than anything else and compassion doesn't necessarily just mean a little mouse with a sore foot and you try to fix it. It means getting yourself inside the mind and heart of someone else. Seeing someone's soul, looking for their truth. Animals teach you all of that and that's how you get compassion and heart." [12]
