Patricia Robbins Beatty was born on August 26, 1922, in Portland, Oregon, to Walter M. and Jesse (nee Miller) Robbins. Her father was an officer in the Coast Guard and his career required his family to move often. As a child, Beatty did a great deal of reading. She seems to have been an introspective child; she was hospitalized for five months when she was ten years old, and during that time she read constantly, which seems to have enhanced her thoughtful nature. Her family returned to Portland in 1935, and Beatty spent her young adult years there, attending both junior high school and high school.

Beatty was not strictly a bookworm in those years. She took up horseback riding, becoming knowledgeable about caring for horses. Horses figure in several of her books. Her love of learning was probably the reason she decided in high school that...