Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (born January 4, 1933) is an American writer best known for children's and young adult fiction.

[3] She decided to expand, sending her writing to youth magazines Highlights, Seventeen, and Jack and Jill, receiving two years of rejection letters.

When Naylor was 18 years old, she married her first husband and they soon moved to Chicago where she worked as a clinical secretary in a university hospital.

Years later her husband began showing signs of severe mental illness, requiring her to seek out treatment for him all over the country.

In 1991, Naylor published the children's book Shiloh about a young boy and an abused dog set in West Virginia.

[8][nb 1] In 1985, Naylor wrote The Agony of Alice, about a sixth grade motherless girl looking for a role model while fumbling through life.

[9] They have two sons, Jeffrey and Michael, and four grandchildren: Sophia (who is herself a writer, comedian, and playwright),[10] Tressa, Garrett and Beckett.