Pam Conrad began taking her career as a children's author seriously when her husband left her. As a mother of two children, she knew she needed a career that would support her family. Instead of letting her difficult circumstances control her life, though, Conrad used the tragedies and joys she experienced as inspiration for her fictional works. It is this realism and detail that made Conrad a leading children's author. Her 1985 novel Prairie Songs launched her into the national spotlight and won numerous awards. Steven Lillington wrote in Books for Your Children that Conrad "is one of the brightest talents to emerge in the last few years."

Conrad was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947. Her parents were very young when she entered the world and the family grew up in an apartment near her grandparents; Conrad even went to the same school her mother had attended years...