Katherine Paterson's reverence for words coupled with her respect for the power of story prompted her to keep writing for years when, not ready to publish, she was learning her craft. Her reluctance overcome, her apprenticeship served, the stories and essays Paterson has published establish her as a major artist, skilled, discerning, and compassionate. What she has written achieves excellence because her artistic vision embraces all that is human and because she is a master craftsman.

What Paterson has said about her work in Gates of Excellence: On Reading and Writing for children (1981) makes explicit basic convictions about life and literature which infuse her eight novels and one collection of Christmas stories. Three principles, embodied in her fiction, might be said to comprise the heart of her literary creed: her belief, first, that children have an inalienable right to stirring stories; second, that these stories must be told...