​Growing up on a small farm near Yellow Springs, Ohio, in the 1940s, Virginia Hamilton was lovingly embraced by the sights, sounds and smells of rural America, and by a big extended family of cousins, uncles, and aunts. All these things would come into play in the children’s stories Hamilton would spin as an adult. Likely the biggest influence on Virginia Hamilton — whom Entertainment Weekly has called "a majestic presence in children’s literature" — was the fact that her own parents were storytellers. And what stories they told!  read more