Robert Newton Peck, the son of Haven and Lucile (Dornburgh) Peck, was born on February 17, 1928, in a rural Shaker community in Vermont.

He h as been a farmer, a lumberjack, a hog butcher, and a paper mill worker.

From 1945-1947 he served in the army and was stationed in Italy, Germany, and France. After returning to the U.S., he attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and received his bachelor's degree in 1953. He married Dorothy Houston, a librarian, in 1958. The Pecks have two children. Peck's first book, A Day No Pigs Would Die (1972), launched his prolific writing career.

The book is based on Peck's own boyhood in rural Vermont and his relationship with his father. The importance of a parental bond occurs in several of Peck's books.

Peck says he writes for no certain age level, and most of his books cross the...