Elizabeth George Speare was born on November 21, 1908, in Melrose, Massachusetts. She began composing stories as a child during lonely summers in the countryside. After completing her undergraduate work at Smith College, she earned her master's degree in English from Boston University and then taught English in Massachusetts high schools.

In 1936 she married Alden Speare. The couple had one daughter and one son.

In order to care for her children, Speare retired from teaching, but when her son and daughter entered high school, she began writing seriously.

Her first novel, Calico Captive, was based on the memoirs of a settler who was captured by Native Americans in colonial times. Her second novel, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, also set in colonial America, won the Newbery Medal in 1960. Two years later Speare won that prestigious prize a second time for The Bronze Bow, a story of...