Author of nonfiction as well as fiction and historical fiction for children and young adults, Judith St. George grew up in Westfield, New Jersey. She lived "an idyllic childhood with friends up and down block- long Maple Street," the author recalled during an interview for AAYA. "It was a street filled with young kids, my companions at Woodrow Wilson Grammar School--the same buddies I had from kindergarten all the way through the sixth grade."

"I was a typical 1930s and '40s tomboy.... In the winter I skated on a swamp pond and sledded. The rest of the year I played tennis and baseball," St. George commented in a 1976 Junior Literary Guild article. The author played second base on a team for boys, long before organized Little League was opened to girls. "Being the only girl on the team was a distinction which carried me a long way...