L.B. Tillit is the award-winning author of a Silver 2012 Independent Book Publisher Award for her High interest level-Low reading level (Hi-Lo) novel, Unchained (2012). LB Tillit is the pen name for Leslie Parker Borhaug who grew up as a missionary-kid in Switzerland, where she struggled with reading and spelling in two different languages. Despite her challenges, she attended Berea College in Kentucky, where she graduated cum laude in 1990 with her teaching degree. In 2015 she received her Master's in Reading and Literacy. She taught sixteen years in regular middle school classrooms and an alternative school, where she became aware of the need for Hi-Lo books to help build reading fluency. Combining her passion for teaching North Carolina history, and writing, she also wrote three award winning books, with her alternative-school students, about Transylvania County's local history, which improved her students reading levels an average of 3 reading grade levels. Because of the positive educational and personal impact Borhaug had on her students, she was honored as "Transylvania County Teacher of the Year". As L.B. Tillit, she also published Ozzie, Zonta, Blake, Emma and Mateo, the first five books in The Way I See It series as well as the Hi-Lo novels: Edge of Ready (2012) and 2 Days (2012). As Leslie Parker Borhaug, she has co-authored two historical fiction novels with G. Keith Parker: Sons of Mercy and Justice: A Transylvania Story (2012), which won an award from North Carolina Society of Historians (2013), and To Stand on Solid Ground: A Civil War Novel Based on Real People and Events(2020), which won the 2020 Award of Excellence and Light House Award from North Carolina Society of Historians and was recognized by the INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD in the category of Military Fiction as a 2021 distinguished favorite. Reading fluency remains Leslie P. Borhaug's passion and continues to drive her to write high-interest level, low-reading level books. In 2020 she established My Easy Read Books, LLC as a platform to promote reading fluency. In 2022 Borhaug was awarded Berea College's Distinguished Alumni Award for her positive impact on literacy. Borhaug currently lives in the mountains of North Carolina with her husband and continues to write and publish Hi-Lo books.
