The tradition of excellence in girls' books beginning with Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868-1869) was carried on by Susan Coolidge's (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey) What Katy Did (1873), Kate Douglas Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903), and L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908). But from 1910 until the late 1930s, series books for girls carried the day, and quality literature was almost impossible to find until three authors appeared, Margorie Hill Allee with The Great Tradition (1937), Florence Crannell Means with Shuttered Windows (1938), and Mabel Louise Robinson with Bright Island (1937). Of the three, perhaps only Means remains a widely recognized figure, but Robinson helped bring realistic and believable young adult problems to modern girl readers looking not only for excitement and fun but for honesty and reality as well. Additionally, Robinson breathed life into a coastal area of Maine and created vivid characters with whom girls could easily identify.

Robinson was...