Alexander Key

Alexander Key (1904-1979) was an American writer best known for children's science fiction and fantasy. Born in LaPlata, Maryland, he moved with his family to Florida as a child after his father's sawmill and cotton gin business was destroyed. He worked for years as an illustrator before turning to writing full time, producing adventure and mystery novels alongside the science fiction for which he is best remembered. His novel Escape to Witch Mountain, about two orphaned siblings with unexplained psychic gifts pursued by adults who want to exploit them, became his most enduring work and was adapted for film, along with its sequel Return from Witch Mountain. He also wrote The Forgotten Door, another widely read novel about a stranded alien child navigating an unfamiliar Earth.