"I've always been a little off balance when it comes to books," wrote author Joyce McDonald on her Web site. "I love everything about them. Not just the words, but the way books feel in my hands and the way they smell." McDonald's many and varied careers attest to this love: she worked several years for a publishing house in Manhattan, operated her own small publishing house, owned and managed a bookstore, published a children's literary magazine, taught literature and writing at the university level, and now is a full-time writer for young readers. Words and books are indeed the breath of life of McDonald, whose novel-length writing credits include Mail-Order Kid, Comfort Creek, Swallowing Stones, Shadow People, and Shades of Simon Gray, as well as a picture book, Homebody, and a literary history of renowned author Willa Cather titled The Stuff of Our Forebears.

McDonald told an...