My mother was always willing to stop what she was doing to tell me about growing up on the prairies, stories of making doughnuts for the harvesters or how Aunt Florence threw eggs at the horses. I have one brother who collects tales of the absurd and another who is a born exaggerator. As youngest in the family I had to become a good storyteller just to hold my own at the dinner table."
Reading and tale-telling were important in Ellis's family while she was growing up. Books were also always close at hand. "The first books I remember were a set of little yellow and black paper-bound fairy tales, sent by Great-Aunt Lou in a Christmas parcel from England. My favorite was The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids," she said. "I found the idea of hiding in a grandfather clock very comforting. Read-alouds in our house were picked to appeal to my older brothers, and that is how I first heard Tom Sawyer, in an edition with lovely pictures by Louis Slobodkin. (Later, in memory of those pictures, I gave one of my characters the last name of Slobodkin. Writers get to play these games.)
"When I got to school I discovered that you were allowed to take home one book a day from the library.
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