In the introduction to her popular and informative book, The Twenty-nine Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, Judy Delton described the equation of writing success as: Joy equals Talent plus Skill, an equation she has certainly followed as the author of over ninety children's books, as well as a novel for young adults and hundreds of essays, articles, poems, and short stories. It is also the philosophy that she has stressed as a teacher. "Writing is something warm and dependable to snuggle up to when everything else is in flux. It's a little secret that you carry with you in public--the knowledge that you alone have the ability to escape to a wonderland where you can make anything happen."¹

Delton was born in 1931 to German-American parents. "I was a Depression baby. The year I was born, my mother was fond of telling me, enough material...