[4] Van Draanen lives in San Luis Obispo, California, with her husband Mark Parsons and two sons, Colton and Connor.
Runaway, a companion book to the Sammy Keyes series, is about a girl named Holly who tries to escape from her latest foster home.
From 2004 to 2006 Van Draanen wrote Shredderman, a four-book series for younger readers about a fifth grade boy who assumes a secret online identity to help him win a battle against the school bully Bubba Bixby.
She also wrote the standalone teen romance Flipped in a he-said she-said style, with the two protagonists alternately presenting their perspective on a shared set of events.
Additional books that have appeared on the Committee's Best Books list include, Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary, Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy, Shredderman, Runaway, The Gecko & Sticky, The Gecko & Sticky: Villains Lair, The Running Dream, Wild Bird, The Peach Rebellion (Outstanding Merit), and Mr. Whiskers and the Shenanigan Sisters.