With more than five hundred and forty published books, he is one of the most prolific authors in the United States,[1] and one of the country's foremost writers of historical works for children and teens.
With his younger brother, Philip (born 1949), Nardo spent the first few years of his life on the road with his parents, who were popular nightclub entertainers who traveled throughout the country.
[3] Outside of school, he learned to play the trumpet and began composing chamber and orchestral music, including a four-movement symphony at age fourteen.
After graduating from high school in 1965, Nardo majored in theater at Syracuse University, but left after a few semesters to pursue an acting career in New York City.
[6] As a young character actor, Nardo appeared in numerous stage productions, including work in summer stock in upstate New York and dinner theater in the American South.
In that same year, noted classical historian Victor Davis Hanson stated online: “There is an entire series of great children’s books [about ancient history] by Don Nardo, who has emerged as the premier practitioner of that important craft.
One of its main story lines, he says, deals with a modern archaeologist who "has discovered an astonishing secret in the deserts of Israel, revealing some startling previously unknown truths about humankind’s place in the universe."
In 1987 the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Royston Nash, commissioned him to compose a concert piece for children based on H.G.
[5] A more recent commission came in 2008 from Portuguese-American violinist Pedro Ferreira—a double concerto for violin and Portuguese guitar, the first major concert piece ever written for the latter instrument.