Writer and illustrator Marguerite Lofft de Angeli was a groundbreaking figure among American fiction writers for younger readers. Her earlier works of the 1930s and 1940s, with their colorful settings among the Amish, Quaker, Polish, Swedish, and FrenchCanadian communities in North America, provide warm but realistic portrayals of these ethnic groups. Bright April (1946) is recognized as one of the earliest American books for younger readers to deal directly with the subject of racial prejudice. But as significant as these works are, Angeli is probably best known today for her major work of historical fiction, The Door in the Wall, for which she received the Newbery Medal in 1950.

Born on March 14, 1889, in Lapeer, Michigan, Angeli moved with her family to Philadelphia in 1902. She lived for most of her adult life in the general area of eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, an area whose various immigrant...