Bass's Planetoid (1958),
The Terrible Churnadryne (1959),
The Mysterious Christmas Shell (1961),
A Spell is Cast (1964),
The Court of the Stone Children and
Julia and the Hand of God. A Spell is Cast won the Commonwealth Club of California's Silver Medal Award in 1964 as did
The Green and Burning Tree in 1969. For her work published up to that time, the Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young Adults voted her their 1965 Annual Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field of Children's Literature.
The only child of English-born parents, Henry and Florence Butler, Eleanor Cameron was born in Canada on 23 March 1912. The family moved to South Charleston, Ohio, in 1915 and three years later to Berkeley, California, where the Carnegie Library became a haven for the young Cameron, who later worked there as a clerk. Regarding her personal interests at this time, she says, "I have been preoccupied with the craft of writing since the age of eleven, and since my teens with the question of what makes a book memorable." As early as age twelve, she decided to become a professional writer and to work as a librarian until her writing supported her.
