The Colony in the Fog is the story of transplanted fourth grader Eric Baker, who has moved with his family from Ohio to Virginia to facilitate his father's eye surgery. During a history lecture, Eric loses his concentration and his teacher assigns him to research and report on the Lost Colony at Roanoke. A series of adventures leads Eric to discover the actual colonists, allowing him to complete his research firsthand.The story emerges from research within three different disciplines: the history of the Lost Colony at Roanoke, writing children's literature, and an analysis of existing children's literature about the Lost Colony. The history of the colony and speculations as to the fate of the colonists provide a basis for a story, which discovers that the colonists had relocated to the Chesapeake Bay as they had intended to do in 1587. Research by such historians as David Beers Quinn and David Stick point to the likelihood of such a move. The research on how to write children's books provided different views of structure, plot and character development. Finally, the existing children's literature on the Lost Colony gave an indication of the historical information about the Colony that children have been exposed to, a condensed version of which became Eric's explanation of the history of the Colony, as well as the basis for a fictionalization of events subsequent to the last meeting of the Colonists with Governor John White in 1587.