Meg Cabot

About Meg Cabot

Meggin Patricia Cabot was born February 1, 1967, in Bloomington, Indiana, and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Indiana University before moving to New York City. She worked for years as an illustrator and an assistant dormitory manager at New York University while writing on the side, publishing her first novels for adults before finding her signature voice in young adult fiction. She has since published more than 80 novels, with an estimated 25 million copies in print worldwide, and now lives in Key West, Florida.

Beloved Series

Cabot is best known for The Princess Diaries, a diary-format series following ordinary New York teenager Mia Thermopolis after she learns she's secretly the princess of a small European country. The books were adapted into two Disney films starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews, introducing Mia's story to an even wider audience. Cabot has built a career on similar premises that drop otherwise average teenage girls into extraordinary circumstances, including The Mediator, about a teen who communicates with ghosts, and the 1-800-Where-R-U series, which follows Jessica Mastriani after a lightning strike leaves her able to locate missing children.

Book Challenges

Several of Cabot's novels have drawn formal objections in schools and libraries, most often over their frank treatment of teenage romance and sexuality. Ready or Not, which follows a 1-800-Where-R-U character weighing whether to become sexually intimate with her boyfriend, has been the most frequently challenged of her titles tracked in this catalog, while Code Name Cassandra has drawn separate objections over its paranormal premise. In total, Cabot's books are recorded here as banned or restricted across 3 states and 19 districts.