Janet Taylor Lisle

Childrens fiction writer Janet Taylor Lisle was born in Englewood, New Jersey, the eldest in a family of five, and the only girl. She and her brothers grew up in Connecticut and on the Rhode Island seacoast, a rugged landscape she would later use in many of her novels. She worked as a VISTA volunteer in Georgia and was a newspaper reporter before turning to fiction. Since the mid-1980s when her first book appeared, she has published sixteen novels for children and young adults, including Afternoon of the Elves, a Newbery Honor book and The Art of Keeping Cool, which won the Scott ODell Award for Historical Fiction. She lives with her husband in Little Compton, Rhode Island.