Lynne Reid Banks was ten years old when the Second World War broke out, and she was evacuated to the Canadian prairies. On her return to London in 1945, she trained and worked as an actress for five years, before then becoming a journalist. She joined ITN in 1955, and was one of the first two women news reporters on British television.

Throughout the 1960s Lynne lived and worked in Israel, where she taught English. Living through the experience of the Six Day War inspired her to write One More River. She became a full-time writer when she returned to England with her husband and three sons in 1971.

The stories of The Indian in the Cupboard began as bedtime stories for her own sons, especially Omri, whose name she used in the stories. Lynne still has the real bathroom cupboard that the Indian came to life in - she once ran back into her hotel room to save it when the hotel caught fire!