Robin McKown (January 27, 1907 — August 1975) was an American writer of young adult literature, chiefly biography and fiction.

During and after World War II, she was chair of an organization that helped the widows and orphans of men who had died fighting for the French Resistance.

[2] During World War II, McKown volunteered with an organization that helped the widows and orphans of men who had died fighting for the French Resistance, spending six weeks in France following the Allied victory in 1945.

[9] Later, she returned to northeastern France and lived there for three years, an experience that inspired the settings for two of her novels, Janine and Patriot of the Underground.

She was noted for her book Giant of the Atom: Ernest Rutherford (1963) written in a "delightful humorous manner" that did not require a comprehensive background in physics to understand.