Adrienne Tropp was born in New York City and loved the toys her grandparents brought when they visited. She hoped if she had children one day, they would also love the toys they received.After marrying her husband, Adrienne moved to Austin, Texas, and began teaching English. Adrienne and her husband have two children. Now that they are grown, their children buy their own kinds of toys, like cars and expensive electronics.Their older child, Joel, was the inspiration for this book. For hours, Joel would play with his toys. He seemed to love them all. The real Joel, unlike the Joel in So Many Toys, was content with the toys he had.While teaching the myth of King Midas, Adrienne saw a similarity between the king who loved gold and her son who loved toys. King Midas, though, wanted more and more and more. So, Adrienne began to wonder. Could a child have too many toys? Would having too many toys cause problems? Would there be enough room to store a lot of toys? Would it be difficult to decide which toy to play with? From these questions, So Many Toys was born.After retiring from teaching, Adrienne had time to work on the story in this book. She has also written books for older children. She tries to spoil her four grandchildren who seem to have definite ideas of what they want.Now living in Washington, DC, she met the illustrator Christine Vineyard who provided the inspiration for the pictures in So Many Toys.