"Perhaps if I'd known how long it would take me to acquire satisfactory writing skills," wrote author Gloria Skurzynski in the Fifth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators, "I would have been too intimidated to try. But with the innocence of ignorance, I began putting words on paper." Skurzynski, who had been a busy wife and mother, started writing children's books after the last of her five daughters began school, a time when she realized she would need something other than bringing up her children to fill her life. She was also encouraged by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Phyllis McGinley, whose verse Skurzynski had read after seeing McGinley on the cover of Time. When Skurzynski posted a fan letter, McGinley replied, and a correspondence began which lasted until the poet died in 1978. Reacting to Skurzynski's observation-filled letters, McGinley told her that she had talent and should consider writing...