Jennifer Carolyn Robin McKinley was a self-confessed "navy brat." Her father, William, was an officer in the U.S. Navy and Merchant Marines. Her mother, Jeanne Carolyn (maiden name Turrell), was a teacher. Robin McKinley was born in her mother's hometown of Warren, Ohio, in 1952, but she did not have a rooted childhood. Her father's career necessitated several moves, to Arlington, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Long Beach, California, New York, Fuchinobe, Japan, Rhode Island, and finally, Vinalhaven, Maine, upon her father's retirement. She has claimed repeatedly that the only way she could keep track of her life was by remembering the book she was reading at the time. She still remembers where she was when her mother told her about the assassination of President Kennedy, because she was reading The Hobbit in Japan. McKinley found books a substitute for "home" and became a voracious...