Betsy Byars, author of ‘The Summer of the Swans’ and other children’s classics, dies at 91

Betsy Byars, the author of “The Summer of the Swans” and other prizewinning works of children’s literature drawn from the real world, with heroes and heroines who survive their lonely, sometimes broken existence by caring for one another, died Feb. 26 at her home in Seneca, S.C. She was 91.

She had complications from a fall, said her daughter Nan Byars.