Ilene Cooper (born March 10, 1948)[1] is an American author and reviewer of children's books.
[2] Cooper began her career as a children's librarian at the Winnetka Public Library.
[3] In the mid-2000s, John Green was working at Booklist, where he was mentored by Cooper, when his book Looking for Alaska won the Michael L. Printz Award.
[5] During this time, Green gave a draft copy of Looking for Alaska to Cooper, before the book was published; Cooper later recalled that after reading this draft, she thought that "He had a voice you could tell was quite original," and decided she would work with him.
[7] In 2007, she won the Illinois Reading Council Prairie State Award for Excellence in Writing for Children.