Playbooks® for Young Readers by Aaron
About the Author

Aaron Shepard

Aaron Shepard is the award-winning author of Master Man, The Sea King's Daughter, The Baker's Dozen, and many more picture books from major U.S. publishers. His work also appears often in Cricket and Australia's School Magazine. Aaron's specialty is retelling folktales and other traditional literature from around the world. His work has been honored by the American Library Association, the National Council for the Social Studies, and the American Folklore Society. His stories are enjoyed by the entire range of elementary grades-as well as by older kids and adults. Because Aaron's stories are so perfect for reading aloud, they are wonderful as adapted to Playbooks®. Aaron lives in Southern California.

"I've loved books and wanted to be a writer for longer than I can remember. As a kid, I wanted to be a fireman and a writer, or a policeman and a writer, or a lawyer and a writer-but always a writer! I think that's partly because my mother read wonderfully to me when I was very young. Reading to kids is the best way to get them to love reading and writing. For me, a lot of the fun of being an author is going out and reading my stories to kids. I get high on kid energy. Some people are surprised that I've never raised a family of my own. It surprises me too! But in a way, I have many children-all the kids who enjoy my stories."

Douglas spent most of his childhood in public libraries with his head buried in a multitude of children's books. From an early age, he expressed a natural ability to draw, having gained inspiration from the illustrators of his youth, including Charles Schultz, Theodore (Dr. Suess) Geisle, Berkley Breathed, and many others. After public school, Douglas enrolled in the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA where he received a Bachelor's Degree in Character Animation. Douglas has worked in the animation industry on several projects, including the television show, Futurama, and the feature film Mouse Hunt. He has recently branched out into children's literacy programs. He feels that it's only natural that he return the favor given to him by so many of his childhood cartoonist heroes. After all, he was inspired by them as a child to read and draw.

Master Man
Jorge Higuera

Jorge Higuera was born in San Clemente, California, not far from his home in San Juan Capistrano where he has resided for the past 23 years. Jorge is a first generation Mexican American who was the first of his family to graduate from college. He has been involved in the arts since an early age and his love and dedication to it led him to receive a scholarship to The Art Institute of Southern California. Jorge uses his natural talents and unique style in many forms of media. This is his first work in illustrating children's stories. In his free time, Jorge loves to play adult league soccer, surf, and hike the great outdoors.

The Hidden One
Liliane Grenier

Liliane, a 24-year-old French-Canadian, is a self-taught artist who began drawing even before she could talk. She constantly works to improve her art by reading any art-related material she can get her hands on, and by voraciously studying the many masterpieces of her heroes of illustration, Alan Lee and J. W. Waterhouse. The work of these two artists serves as some of her greatest visual inspiration. Liliane's second passion in life is children, and she currently works as a daycare educator. She has completed various illustration projects, most of them child and teen oriented, but the majority of her work consists of medieval and Celtic-themed paintings, often inspired by imaginative stories such as "The Lord of the Rings," "Harry Potter," and the myth of King Arthur. Miss Grenier hopes to continue to increase her work as an illustrator in the years to come. A large body of her art can be viewed at the following online gallery: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/art/l/i/liliane/liliane.html.