Robin McKinley

Robin McKinley

Robin McKinley's full name is Jennifer Robin Carolyn McKinley, and she was born November 16, 1952 in Warren, Ohio. Her father's career in the Navy sent her traveling throughout the world as a child. Growing up she had a passion for reading.

She attended Gould Academy, a preparatory school in Bethel, Maine, and Dickinson College in 1970-1972. In 1975, she was graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College. In 1978, her first novel, Beauty, was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to, and at age 26, she began her writing career.

The heroines in McKinley's books reflect certain qualities that she saw in herself as a young woman: clumsiness, plainness, bookishness, and disinterest in the usual social games. She writes about strong heroines because she feels very strongly about the potential for girls to be "doing things" and she feels that the selection of fantasy literature featuring girls is scarce and unsatisfactory. According to biographer Marilyn H. Karrenbrock, "McKinley's females do not . . . betray their own nature to win a man's approval. But neither do they take love lightly or put their own desires before anything else. In McKinley's books, the romance, like the adventure, is based upon ideals of faithfulness, duty, and honor."

Robin married English author Peter Dickinson in 1992 and currently lives in "a small village in a very large house" in Hampshire, England with her husband, three whippets, and a horse.

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10 Items found
Beauty
by Robin McKinley
First Paperback Edition, 2018 from Greenwillow Books
Fantasy/Retold Fairy Tale for 5th-8th grade
$6.79
Blue Sword
by Robin McKinley
from Greenwillow Books
for 8th-10th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Blue Sword
by Robin McKinley
from Puffin Books
for 8th-10th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
$7.64 $3.60 (1 in stock)
Deerskin
by Robin McKinley
from Berkley Books
for 11th-Adult
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Hero and the Crown
by Robin McKinley
Reissue from Puffin Books
for 5th-9th grade
1985 Newbery Medal Winner
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
$5.94
Hero and the Crown
by Robin McKinley
from ACE Publishing
for 5th-9th grade
1985 Newbery Medal Winner
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Light Princess (adapted)
by George MacDonald, adapted by Robin McKinley and illustrated by Katie Thamer Treherne
from Harcourt Children's Books
Fantasy for Kindergarten-3rd grade
Outlaws of Sherwood
by Robin McKinley
from ACE Publishing
for 8th-12th grade
in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$12.75
Phoenix and the Carpet
Puffin Classics Nesbit Trilogy Book 2
by E. Nesbit, illustrated by H. R. Millar (uncredited)
from Puffin Books
Fantasy for 4th-8th grade
in Puffin Classics (Location: FIC-PUF)
$5.94
Spindle's End
by Robin McKinley
from G.P. Putnam's Sons
for 9th-Adult
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)