Phyllis Rose Eisenberg was born June 26, 1924, in Chicago, IL. She was quiet and shy as a child. Her parents' divorce, when she was eleven caused her to become more withdrawn. Because divorce was something of a rarity at the time, she worried about being different from her friends. Though she didn't know it then, the seeds of a compelling need to express herself had been planted. However, she was married and the mother of a kindergartner before she took writing seriously. Eventually, when her son was a teenager, a comment he made about his grandmothers let to the book called A Mitzvah Is Something Special . In Worldbook Encyclopedia Yearbook 1979 it was listed as one of twelve outstanding works of fiction for children.
Biographical Source: Something About the Author vol. 41, pp. 83-85.
From the guide to the Phyllis Rose Eisenberg Papers, 1978, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])