Trudy Krisher's first books have established her reputation as a talented writer who does not hesitate to explore sensitive issues. Her first book, the children's story Kathy's Hats: A Story of Hope, portrays the courage of a child battling cancer. Since then she has ventured into the arena of young adult fiction. Spite Fences presents a young white woman's difficult attempt to stand up for civil rights in the southern United States during the early 1960s, while the follow-up novel Kinship similarly examines the challenges facing teens in impoverished neighborhoods of that era. The former book earned Krisher the Cuffie Award from Publishers Weekly for 1994's most promising new author, and both novels have been praised for their outstanding settings and characterizations.

Krisher once commented that "my father, through his love of history, taught me to value the telling detail, and my mother, through her concern for the...