Background
O'Donnell, was born in Aurora, Illinois and attended schools in East Aurora Public School District 131.
O'Donnell, was born in Aurora, Illinois and attended schools in East Aurora Public School District 131.
She graduated from East Aurora High School, then attended the University of Chicago and Columbia University.
O'Donnell is best known for the Alice and Jerry and Janet and John series. Books by O'Donnell sold more than 100 million copies around the world. In 1965, the East Aurora School District named an elementary school on Reckinger Road after O'Donnell.
In 1946, O'Donnell resigned from the school district to begin working with Roe Peterson & Co., in Evanston. O'Donnell began working on a series of books for young readers. The "Alice and Jerry" books were published by Row, Peterson and Company, which later became part of Harper Collins.
In all, there were more than 20 books published in the Alice and Jerry series. In 1949, O'Donnell worked on the Janet and John series, an Anglicisation of her Alice and John books. The books continued to be updated though the years, with different character names and slight modifications in the plots.
The stories were illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes. O'Donnell also worked on scholarly reading research, including Prevention and Correction of Reading Difficulties with Emmett Albert Betts.