When Nancy Farmer was young, her father managed a hotel in Yuma, Arizona. Growing up in a hotel full of interesting strangers, Farmer became fascinated with storytelling. As she remembers, "Every night until past midnight I listened to stories from truck drivers, cowboys, and railroad workers." However, she did not act on this fascination until she was 41 years old, having in the meantime been sidetracked by a love of science and travel. From 1963 to 1965 she was a Peace Corps volunteer in India. After two years of further travel, she returned briefly to the States, then set out to work her way around the world. She never made it beyond her first stop—Africa. She worked as a chemist and entomologist in Mozambique for three years, then in neighboring Zimbabwe for almost 14 years. In Zimbabwe she met and married Harold Farmer, an English instructor...