Lynn Hall is an astonishingly prolific author of books for young adults, and her books have been well received by both her pre-teen and teenage audiences and by critics. She was born in the Chicago suburb of Lombard on November 9, 1937, but her family moved soon after to a small town near Des Moines, Iowa. As with many other writers, Hall was a loner as a child, perceiving herself as radically different from her parents and her younger and elder sisters in her intense love for animals. She daydreamed about escaping from her family and living by herself in some rural spot, surrounded by dogs and horses.

Hall's childhood dream eventually came true, but only after many years of false starts and hard work. She left home immediately after graduating from high school and traveled all over the country, laboring at a number of essentially...