"Rubini frames the story as a mystery, asking why, despite Nancy Drew's fame, most people have never heard of Benson and tracking down clues and evidence to uncover more information about the life of this little-known author...VERDICT A solid option for those interested in the 'Nancy Drew' mysteries." -School Library JournalGrowing up in Ladora, Iowa, Mildred "Millie" Benson had ample time to develop her imagination, sense of adventure, and independence. Millie left her small hometown to attend the University of Iowa, where she became the first person to earn a master's degree from the school of journalism. While still a graduate student, Millie began writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which published the phenomenally popular Hardy Boys series, among many others. Soon, Edward Stratemeyer tapped Millie for a new series starring amateur sleuth Nancy Drew, a young, independent woman not unlike Millie herself. The syndicate paid its writers a flat fee for their work and published the books under pseudonyms. Under the pen name Carolyn Keene, Millie went on to write twenty-three of the first thirty books of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. In all, Millie wrote more than a hundred novels for young people under her own name and under pseudonyms. Millie was also a journalist for the Toledo (Ohio) Times and The Blade. At the age of sixty-two she obtained her pilot's license and combined her love of aviation with her passion for writing, sharing her travels and adventures with readers. Follow the clues throughout Missing Millie to solve the mysteries of this ghostwriter, journalist, and adventurer.

"Rubini frames the story as a mystery, asking why, despite Nancy Drew's fame, most people have never heard of Benson and tracking down clues and evidence to uncover more information about the life of this little-known author...VERDICT A solid option for those interested in the 'Nancy Drew' mysteries." -School Library JournalGrowing up in Ladora, Iowa, Mildred "Millie" Benson had ample time to develop her imagination, sense of adventure, and independence. Millie left her small hometown to attend the University of Iowa, where she became the first person to earn a master's degree from the school of journalism. While still a graduate student, Millie began writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which published the phenomenally popular Hardy Boys series, among many others. Soon, Edward Stratemeyer tapped Millie for a new series starring amateur sleuth Nancy Drew, a young, independent woman not unlike Millie herself. The syndicate paid its writers a flat fee for their work and published the books under pseudonyms. Under the pen name Carolyn Keene, Millie went on to write twenty-three of the first thirty books of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. In all, Millie wrote more than a hundred novels for young people under her own name and under pseudonyms. Millie was also a journalist for the Toledo (Ohio) Times and The Blade. At the age of sixty-two she obtained her pilot's license and combined her love of aviation with her passion for writing, sharing her travels and adventures with readers. Follow the clues throughout Missing Millie to solve the mysteries of this ghostwriter, journalist, and adventurer.

Long before she wrote The House of Dies Drear, M. C. Higgins, the Great, and many other children's classics, Virginia Hamilton grew up among her extended family near Yellow Springs, Ohio, where her grandfather had been brought as a baby through the Underground Railroad. The family stories she heard as a child fueled her imagination, and the freedom to roam the farms and woods nearby trained her to be a great observer. In all, Hamilton wrote forty-one books, each driven by a focus on "the known, the remembered, and the imagined"-particularly within the lives of African Americans. Over her thirty-five-year career, Hamilton received every major award for children's literature. This new biography gives us the whole story of Virginia's creative genius, her passion for nurturing young readers, and her clever way of crafting stories they'd love.