Both my parents were writers and editors, and I wrote stories from the first grade on. My father (who wrote the l97l Newbery Medal-winning Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH under the pen name Robert C. O'Brien) taught me to try to give my writing the cadence of spoken conversation, and to eliminate unnecessary description. (I am still working on this.) My mother taught me that good characters are the most important element in fiction.

My family moved to Washington, D.C. in l962. I graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in l966, from Smith College in l971, and from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars Program in l974. That same year I finished writing my father's young adult novel, Z for Zachariah, after he died from heart failure. My mother edited the book, and it was published in l975. I decided then that I didn't want to be a writer because I didn't enjoy being alone so much of the day. But after I got married and my first child, Eliza, was born, I changed my mind. I wrote Racso and the Rats of NIMH (l986), R-T, Margaret and the Rats of NIMH (l990); Crazy Lady! (l993); and Trout Summer (l995); While No One Was Watching (1998); What Happened On Planet Kid (2000); and The Rudest Alien on Earth (2002).

I've lived in Baltimore for almost twenty-three years. Right now I live with my teenaged son, Will, who is a precussionist at a public high school for the performing arts; and our dog, Loki, who is old and fat. Besides writing novels, I tutor young people who want to become writers, and also work part-time with a class of middle schoolers, making up crazy stories and writing them in different ways. I also enjoy fishing, canoeing, camping, gardening, and listening to jazz.

A brash young city rat, Racso, brings rock music and candy to Thorn Valley, home of the Rats of NIMH, where he becomes part of an adventure that will change his life.

Two human children become lost in the forest and are rescued by the Rats of NIMH. They live in Thorn Valley until the coming winter forces them to return to their city home.

With great reluctance, a neighborhood boy, Vernon Dibbs, befriends crazy alcoholic Maxine and her retarded son Ronald.

Shana and her brother Cody spend the summer in an abandoned cabin and make friends with a stubborn old man who claims to be a ranger. His actions lead them to undertake a dangerous whitewater adventure.

Two worlds collide when Earl and Frankie steal a rabbit from the rich end of town, and its owner and her neighbor vow to find the thieves and get the rabbit back.

During Dawn's summer visit to her aunt and uncle's farm she and her friend Charlotte create an imaginary world called Planet Kid; but soon the darker world of adults threatens to intrude.

A stubborn, impulsive alien takes a field trip to planet Earth where, against her orders, she makes friends with a pair of two leggers called Molly and Jack.

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