Setting, McGraw says, is fundamental to every story she writes. She likens the process of establishing setting to watching a movie in living color complete with sound.

She must have a clear mental picture of where and when the story takes place, together with an inner map.

Setting is integral to the story of The Moorchild. The reader, in a suspension of disbelief, is spirited away to an imagined world in what may be ancient Britain.

Closely linked with folklore of the British Isles, the story mingles myth and legend of medieval times with the realities of human existence that challenge young people even today.

Two worlds provide a setting for the story, the wild and open moor and the closed and stagnant village. Here lives Saaski, a misbegotten child, who must find her place somewhere between the two. For Saaski, the moor means freedom, a place of...