Janet Taylor Lisle was born in Englewood, NJ, and grew up in Farmington, CT, spending summers on the coast of Rhode Island, where both her maternal and paternal grandparents lived. The eldest and only daughter in a family of five children, she was educated at local schools, and at fifteen entered The Ethel Walker School, a girl's boarding school in Simsbury, CT.After graduation from Smith College in 1969, with a degree in English, she joined VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America.) She lived and worked for the next several years in Atlanta, GA, organizing food-buying cooperatives in the city's public housing projects, and teaching in an early-child care center. She later enrolled in journalism courses at Georgia State University with the idea of writing about the poverty she had seen. This was the beginning of a newspaper reporting career that extended over the next ten years.With the birth of her daughter, Lisle gradually turned from journalism to writing projects that could be accomplished at home. In 1984, THE DANCING CATS OF APPLESAP, her first novel, was published by Bradbury Press (Macmillan.) She has subsequently published fifteen other novels for children.Lisle's books have received the Newbery Honor Award (for AFTERNOON OF THE ELVES, 1990), the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction (for THE ART OF KEEPING COOL, 2001), Holland's Zilverin Griffel (AFTERNOON OF THE ELVES, 1993), and Italy's Premio Andersen Award (HOW I BECAME A WRITER AND OGGIE LEARNED TO DRIVE, 2006) among other honors. Her book BLACK DUCK won the 2007 Rhode Island Book Award from ASTAL, and was an ALA Notable Children's Book. For adults, Lisle has written a two volume history of the town of Little Compton: FIRST LIGHT, SAKONNET 1660-1820, (2010) and A HOME BY THE SEA 1820-1950 (2012)She lives in Little Compton, Rhode Island, in a home by the sea.