Rounds, who was born in 1906 in a sod house near Wall, South Dakota, and moved to Montana one year later in a covered wagon. He wrote dozens of tall tales and realistic books about rural America, especially North Carolina, where he lived, and Montana, where he was brought up. Rounds first book, Ol' Paul, the Mighty Logger, was published in 1936 by Holiday. He won the AAUW Award in 1983 for Wild Appaloosa. The AAUW Award was created in 1953 to honor North Carolinan children's authors.Rounds died in Pinehurst, NC, September 27, 2002, after a long illness. He was 96.