Things are fairly normal in Hard Pan, population forty-three.
Matt lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania..
His picture books include The New Girl...and Me and Two of a Kind, both written by Jacqui Robbins.
Birney.
Matt Phelan\'s black-and-white illustrations first appeared in The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty G.
Married to a rare book restorer from the Champagne region of France, Susan is working on the final book in the "Lucky" trilogy.
The Higher Power of Luck will be translated into twelve foreign languages and has been optioned for a motion picture.
All earned starred reviews, and the latter was named an ALA Notable book.
Patron\'s previous books for children include the Billy Que trilogy of picture books
Dark Cloud Strong Breeze; and a chapter book, Maybe Yes, Maybe No, Maybe Maybe.
She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the Society of Children\'s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Patron has served on many book award committees, including the Caldecott and Laura Ingalls Wilder Committees of the American Library Association.
As the library\'s Juvenile Materials Collection Development Manager, she trained and mentored children\'s librarians in 72 branches.
About the Author: Susan Patron specialized in Children\'s Services for 35 years at the Los Angeles Public Library before retiring in 2007, the same year her novel The Higher Power of Lucky was awarded the John Newbery Medal.
And before she knows it, Lucky gets stuck in a well, meets up with a wild burro, discards something she didn\'t know was precious, does something unexpectedly cruel, and learns a couple of the secrets of the universe.
Just in the nick of time, she meets a potential new best friend named Paloma, who happens to be visiting Hard Pan with her uncle, a geologist.
But to Lucky, fairly normal means fairly boring, and she\'s restless.
Things are fairly normal in Hard Pan, population forty-three
