[2] An American naturalist and writer, she is known for her series of nature books chronicling the lives of wild animals.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and partially disfigured at birth with nerve damage by the use of high forceps that also broke her mother's coccyx, she had a difficult childhood.

Along her walk to school, Carrighar would pass along other parts of the estate noting the "vistas as lovely as landscape architects could create".

[7] She attended Wellesley College for two years and would have graduated with the class of 1922 but had to leave due to sickness.

"[10] Critics said of her first two books that she was "the most imaginative and poetic nature writer in this country", and "like no one else who has ever written about animals, birds, and insects".