Born Caroline Ryrie, the only child of Alexander and Henrietta (Watkins) Ryrie, Brink was orphaned by age 8, and raised by her maternal grandmother, Caroline Watkins, the model for Caddie Woodlawn. Her grandmother's life and storytelling abilities inspired her writing at an early age.

She started writing for her school newspapers and continued that in college. She attended the University of Idaho for three years (1914-17) before transferring to the University of California in 1917, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1918. On June 12 of that year, she married University of Minnesota instructor Raymond Woodard Brink, a young mathematics professor she had met in Moscow. They made their home in St. Paul for forty-two years, where they raised a son and a daughter, spending summers in the Wisconsin backwoods, although they did travel for several years in Scotland and France.

Anything Can Happen on the River, her first novel, was published in 1934. She wrote fiction throughout her life, and added poetry and painting to her later accomplishments. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Idaho in 1965..Brink Hall, which houses the UI English Department and faculty offices, is named in her honor. The children's section of the Moscow, ID Carnegie public library is also named after her.

She died of heart failure at the age of eighty-four.

Novels

• 1934 Anything Can Happen on the River
• 1935 Caddie Woodlawn
• 1937 Baby Island
• 1937 Goody O'Grumpity
• 1939 All Over Town
• 1939 Mademoiselle Misfortune
• 1939 Magical Melons (Note: Magical Melons is now published as "Caddie Woodlawn's Family.")
• 1941 Lad with a Whistle
• 1944 Buffalo Coat
• 1945 Narcissa Whitman
• 1945 Minty et Compagnie
• 1946 Lafayette
• 1947 Harps in the Wind
• 1951 Stopover
• 1952 Family Grandstand
• 1953 The Highly Trained Dogs of Professor Petit
• 1955 The Headland
• 1956 Family Sabbatical
• 1959 The Pink Motel
• 1959 Strangers in the Forest
• 1961 The Twin Cities
• 1962 Chateau Saint Barnabe
• 1964 Snow in the River
• 1966 Andy Buckram's Tin Men
• 1968 Two Are Better Than One
• 1968 Winter Cottage
• 1972 The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein [Irma's Big Lie]
• 1974 Louly
• 1976 The Bellini Look
• 1977 Four Girls on a Homestead

Plays

• 1928 The Cupboard Was Bare'
• 1945 Caddie Woodlawn