ANICE SHEFELMAN, is a children's author with a strong interest in making the past come alive through historical fiction. Her picture books, early readers, and middle grade novels, illustrated by husband Tom Shefelman, have won many awards. These include the New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age, Children's Book Council Notable Book, Reading Rainbow Book, and the International Reading Association Children's Choices. Her love of children's books began when her father, a German professor at S.M.U. in Dallas, read to her from an early age. This love led to careers as teacher, librarian, and writer. Books also gave her the desire to see the world. She spent one summer bicycling around Europe and another traveling in North Africa and the Middle East. When she married Tom, an architect, they set out on a yearlong trip around the world, traveling by freighter and living for a time in a Buddhist temple. Along the way she wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, which Tom illustrated. Janice and Tom returned to settle in Austin. Her writing career began to blossom when her first book, A Paradise Called Texas, appeared on the Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List. After raising two sons, Karl and Dan, who also illustrated some of her books, she now devotes full time to writing.

OM SHEFELMAN'S childhood home in Seattle, Washington, was blessed with a library of beautifully illustrated editions of the classics such as Robin Hood. He knew the stories through the pictures before he began to read them. On his ninth birthday he was given a set of Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia. He remembers opening one of the volumes to a picture of the Temple of Karnak on the Nile River and marveling at the mighty columns that dwarfed the man standing between them. His mother, a singer and sometimes painter, "tried but failed to make a musician out of me," Tom says, "so she settled for artist." Drawing and cartooning became his ticket to social acceptance and good grades. In high school he drew cartoons for the school newspaper. But when an architect visited on Career Day and showed his drawings of beautiful buildings, Tom, still dreaming of the Temple of Karnak, decided on architecture. "My attorney father was relieved. He was afraid I might become a starving artist!" As it turned out, Tom became both architect and artist, dividing his time between his architectural office in a historic building and his home studio. To read an interview by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators click here. To read an interview about the Shefelmans' process of making books together click here.