Born in Miami, Florida, in 1948, Donna Jo Napoli was the youngest of the four children of a building contractor and a housewife, both of whom were children of Italian immigrants. In many respects Napoli's success is the culmination of the American dream. She recalls, in an autobiographical essay in Something about the Author Autobiography Series, that there were never any books in her home. Yet by second grade she had discovered the school library, where she soon got the librarian to allow her to visit twice a week in order read more than the allowed two books per week, thus beginning a lifelong affair with words.

The nature of her father's business—building a house, selling it, then moving to another site nearby—led to Napoli's feeling of not belonging. Always the quiet tomboy, she retreated deeper into the world of imagination...