Justin Denzel was an American author of children's and young adult books. He was born in Clifton, New Jersey in 1917. As a child he showed an early interest in nature that was to reappear later in his books. He worked for some years in Alaska, where he wrote for an Alaskan newspaper. He gave up writing after an unsuccessful attempt to write an adult novel, however when he returned to writing he realized he liked to make short stories and children's novels more. Many of his books featured nature and animals and tend to have a historical setting.