Lloyd Alexander is acknowledged to be one of the classic figures in the world of children's literature. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 30, 1924. His father was a stockbroker, his mother a housewife, and he describes his childhood as unextraordinary. He was not an excellent student in school although he learned to read when he was quite young and became an avid reader. He credits Charles Dickens with being one of the writers who influenced his life and helped him to mature. In the course of his reading, Alexander discovered King Arthur and His Knights and began reading hero tales, an act that had a marked effect on his own writing years later. ...