Award-winning author of children's literature whose best known works include Odd Man Out, The Baby Project, and Out of the Blue. Her 1991 children's book Pick Up Sticks won the Governor General's Award.
She graduated from the University of British Columbia in the 1970s and went on to work as a librarian in both Vancouver and Toronto.
She received the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, and the IODE Violet Downey Award, among other literary honors.
She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. In her adulthood, she was open about her lesbian identity.
She and her Canadian literary contemporary, Kenneth Oppel, both wrote award-winning children's books.
