Sonia was raised in the South Bronx where her involvement in the arts was inspired by teachers who encouraged her to audition for the High School of Performing Arts. She was accepted there and began her career as an actress.

A scholarship took her to Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and in her junior year, she came to New York to star in the original production of the off-Broadway show "Godspell." Within a year Sonia joined the production of "Sesame Street" where she eventually began writing scripts. Sonia has won 15 Emmy Awards in that capacity.

Sonia has performed on the New York stage, in the critically acclaimed theater pieces "Vagina Monologues" and "The Exonerated." She has written for the Peabody Award winning children's series, "Little Bill," and has written a parenting column for the Sesame Workshop web site called "Talking Outloud" which can be visited at www.sesameworkshop.org.

Sonia's children's book, "No Dogs Allowed," published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing in 2004, was one of five books selected by the General Mills initiative "Spoonfuls of Stories." As part of that effort, Sonia worked with General Mills and its nonprofit partner, First Book, to encourage children to read and to help get books to children across the country. In the fall of 2005, General Mills gave away a total of one million copies of "No Dogs Allowed."

Sonia has received awards from the Association of Hispanic Arts, The Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington DC, The National Hispanic Media Coalition, The Committee for Hispanic Children and Families and Hispanic Heritage Award for Education in 2003. She received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Nortre Dame University in 2005. Closer to home she is proud to have been inducted into the Bronx Hall of Fame in 2004.

She was twice nominated for an Emmy Award as Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series. She has served on the March of Dimes Board, and the board of the George Foster Peabody Awards and the board of Symphony Space, well known for it's Literary Shorts series on NPR.

Manzano has a licensing company called "The Three Amigas."

A second children's book "A Box Full of Kittens" will be out in June 2007. Sonia resides in the Upper West Side with her husband and daughter and is currently working on a memoir.