Marjorie Ainsborough Decker
Well-known for over twenty years now as a master storyteller, Marjorie Ainsborough Decker is the inspired author of the best-selling Christian Mother Goose® children’s book series. She is a native of Liverpool, England, where her penchant for rhyme was developed at an early age. According to Marjorie, “As a little girl, I played and romped to the strains of Mother Goose rhymes on worn cobblestone streets; dancing rhymes, riddle rhymes, game rhymes and counting rhymes.” Marjorie also had a deep affinity for the Bible, a devotion which she has continued to develop and refine while teaching Scriptures for the past forty years.
Describing herself as “. . . a young war bride transplanted from the shores of England,” Marjorie Decker moved from Liverpool to America after the tumultuous years of World War II. Raising four boys was an amazing day-to-day adventure that led her one day to the idea of a Christian Mother Goose with which to entertain and educate young children. According to Marjorie, “The idea stemmed from the curiously appropriate combination of my long-time love of God’s Word and my ongoing quest into the mysteries of Mother Goose.” By reworking Mother Goose rhymes to include inspirational themes and values, Marjorie soon discovered that she had the talent to reflect spiritual truths through Biblical parables and the practical principles of joyful living.
By 1979, Marjorie had created enough inspirational rhymes for the first Christian Mother Goose® book. But after a number of religious publishers had turned the idea down, the Deckers decided to launch their own little publishing house with one of their sons, Kevin. The Christian Mother Goose® series went on to sell 2.25 million hardcover copies, the majority of which were sold by the Decker’s small publishing house, before being taken on by World Bible Publishing in May 1987. To date, Marjorie Decker has created more than a dozen Christian Mother Goose® books, all of whose original drafts are written out longhand with a pencil in her preferred writing method. In 2001, for the first time ever, Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers will publish newly designed formats in this ever-popular series together with brand-new Marjorie Decker titles through its mass market imprint, Grosset & Dunlap.
Listed by the Christian Booksellers Association as one of “The Top 10 Bestselling Authors of the Decade”, Marjorie Ainsborough Decker is regarded as an important forerunner in the rise and success of Christian children’s book titles. Her Christian Mother Goose™Big Book was the first children’s book ever to top the CBA Adult Bestseller List. Marjorie Decker is also a respected adult conference speaker and frequent guest of national radio and television. She and her husband Dale have been married forty-five years. They live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she continues to read and rhyme from the Scriptures just about every day.
