Mollie Hunter is best known for her historical narratives and fantasies for young people, but her present essays [collected in Talent Is Not Enough: Mollie Hunter on Writing for Children], originally delivered as lectures, pertain to the writing of any work of fiction, juvenile or adult. This gifted practitioner of the art of writing children's books assumes that there are natural and necessary connections linking the various areas of all good writing. She traces the filaments binding folklore to storytelling, storytelling to the experiences of an author, and an author's experiences to the sudden apprehensions often kindled by words in both writers and children.

In A Sound of Chariots, Mollie Hunter tells how Bridie McShane, overwhelmed by grief at the death of her father, became suddenly, instantly aware of her physical surroundings…. (p. ix)

From the various allusions to Mollie's own childhood experiences in "Talent Is Not Enough...