Anne Isaacs, born March 2, 1949, grew up in Buffalo, New York, and lived there until she left to attend the University of Michigan where she studied literature.

As a child, she read widely and voraciously, sampling books from her parents' collection and the public library. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women made a particularly strong impression on her as she read and re-read it many times. She also read many adult classics, such as Romeo and Juliet, Lorna Doone, and The Caine Mutiny, but she did not read much children's literature until she began reading to her own children. She claims that this late introduction to the world of children's literature allowed her to avoid making distinctions between stories for children and those for adults and to apply the same standards to both. She does not simplify her writing for children because she is confident that...