Elizabeth Raum has written over 150 books for young readers, often choosing to write about places she has lived. During the 1997 floods in the Red River Valley, she was living in Fargo, North Dakota. As she watched elementary and high school students fill sandbags and build dikes, she wondered what would happen to kids who were home alone as flood waters rose. North, Rosie, and Grandma Lily are fictional characters who stepped up to provide a possible answer.