Carol Ryrie Brink was born December 28, 1895 in Moscow, Idaho. She attended school in Idaho and California, graduating from the University of California at Berkeley with BA in 1918. Carol Ryrie Brink began writing short stories and poems for children in the 1920s, submitting them to various children's magazines, and published her first book for children, Anything Can Happen on the River, in 1934. The book drew on her experiences living and traveling in France with her husband and son. In 1935, she published Caddie Woodlawn, a book based on her maternal grandmother's girlhood experiences growing up on the Wisconsin frontier during the Civil War in a time of conflict between white settlers and Native Americans. The book won the Newbery Award the following year, and has remained a classic of historical fiction for its depiction of the relationship of a young white girl with some of her Indian neighbors, the hardships and dangers of frontier life, as well as the difficulties young Caddie experiences in trying to become more ladylike yet remain true to herself and her "tomboy" instincts. The book also focuses on two areas Carol Ryrie Brink brought to the forefront in many of her books: family relationships and close friendships and how important each is to personal happiness, security, and growth. Many of her books, such as Louly, deal with her own childhood experiences growing up in Idaho at the turn of the century and she used her friends, relatives, and pets as the basis for some her characters. Carol Ryrie Brink's books whether set in the past or present are full of vivid characterizations, a strong sense of time and place, an awareness that one must not lose touch with one's past or history, and honesty about the good and bad times of growing up. Throughout her long and prolific career, she wrote fiction and non-fiction for children and adults, as well as plays and poetry. Carol Ryrie Brink won the Kerlan Award in 1978, and died in La Jolla, California on August 15, 1981.