Elaine Lobl Konigsburg was born on February 10, 1930, in New York City. Her father, Adolph Lobl, a successful businessman, and her mother, Beulah Klein Lobl, provided their daughter a pleasant childhood. Konigsburg attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie-Mellon University, intending to become a chemist. She earned a bachelor of science degree in 1952 and studied chemistry in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh until 1954, when she married psychologist David Konigsburg. The two eventually settled in Jacksonville, Florida, where, after teaching science for two years in the public schools, Konigsburg settled down to raise her three children, Paul, Laurie, and Ross.

An uninspired scientist, Konigsburg found her true calling once her children had become more or less independent, and she turned to writing children's stories. Her books found a ready audience and received critical acclaim. Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, her first...