S. Thomas Russell was born in Toronto Ontario in 1952. At the age of three his family moved to the outskirts of the city where they lived in a cottage on the beach. Living on the shore of the lake awoke in him a love of the water that is obvious in many of his books."My mother read to us a lot and both my parents were readers so I guess my love of books isn't hard to explain. We only received two television stations and there was no movie theatre nearby, so reading was necessary for entertainment."
Favourite books from his childhood include Tom Sawyer ("I read it so many times I can still remember the first few lines."), Huckleberry Finn, and Captains Courageous.
