Betsy Byars was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. She studied for two years at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and then returned to Charlotte to earn a degree from Queens College. In 1950 she married Edward Byars, and while he was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, she began to write articles for The Saturday Evening Post, Look, and TV Guide. As her family grew, she began writing books for children.
Mrs. Byars and her husband and their four children live in West Virginia, where he is a professor of engineering at West Virginia University. She does her writing in the winter months; her husband's hobby is soaring, and her summers are filled with putting a sailplane together, taking it apart, taping and polishing it, and driving a thirty-five-foot trailer around the country.
Mrs. Byars has written a number of books for children, including The Midnight Fox, The House of Wings and The 18th Emergency. In 1971 she received the Newbery Award for The Summer of the Swans.
Did you find this review helpful?