Rylant was born on June 6, 1954, in Hopewell, Va., but spent much of her childhood living in a small town in West Virginia with her grandparents. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston) in 1975, a master's degree from Marshall University in 1976, and a master's degree in library science from Kent State University in 1982. While working as a children's librarian, she developed the ambition to become an author. Her first publication, a picture book entitled ‘When I Was Young in the Mountains' (1982), was chosen as a Caldecott Honor Book; Rylant earned the honor again for ‘The Relatives Came' (1985).

Rylant received numerous other awards for her work, most notably the 1993 Newbery Medal for ‘Missing May', a novel about a girl and her uncle dealing with the loss of a loved one. ‘A Fine White Dust', a novel for middle school readers, had been chosen as a Newbery Honor Book in 1987. The National Council for Social Studies and School Library Journal both selected ‘Waiting to Waltz . . . a Childhood', Rylant's autobiographical collection of poetry, as the best book of 1984.

Among Rylant's other publications were the novels ‘A Blue-Eyed Daisy' (1985) and ‘A Kindness' (1988); the short-story collections ‘Every Living Thing' (1985), ‘Children of Christmas: Stories for the Season' (1987), and ‘A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories about Love' (1990); the autobiography ‘But I'll Be Back Again: An Album' (1989); and the nonfiction book ‘Appalachia: The Voices of Sleeping Birds' (1991). A series of picture books about a boy and his dog debuted in 1987 with ‘Henry and Mudge'. Rylant was also the author and illustrator of “The Everyday Books” series (1993) for beginning readers.