Elizabeth Cavanna Harrison

Writing under the names Betty Cavanna, Elizabeth Headley, and Betsy Allen, Elizabeth Cavanna Harrison has delighted thousands of young people all over the world with her fascinating stories. She published her first book, Puppy Stakes, in 1943, and has since written wrote more than 80 books that were published in the United States and several other countries. Before turning to mystery writing in the 1970s, she wrote a nonfiction series called Around the World that was based on children she met in the Caribbean, Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa. Her well-researched, skillfully written stories of adventure, mystery, and life in other lands helped many young readers understand the process of growing up and gave them an appetite for quality literature. She published her last book, Banner Year, in 1987. Harrison majored in journalism at Douglass College and earned money by reporting college items, at 10 cents an inch, for the New Brunswick Home News. After college she worked as social editor of the Bayonne Times and then as art director for the Westminster Press in Philadelphia. She began writing short stories at night then became a full-time freelance writer. Harrison died in 2001 at age 92.