Sandy Fussell lives on the NSW South Coast with her husband and two sons. She studied mathematics at university, is intensely interested in history, and now works in IT. She is afraid of bears, volcanoes and samurai swords and has written a book about each one of them. Her series Samurai Kids has been hugely successful: Book 1, White Crane, won an IBBY 2011 Outstanding Book for Children with Disabilities and has been listed for awards in the US, UK, Japan and China. Book 3, Shaolin Tiger, and Book 5, Fire Lizard, were Notable Books in the Younger Readers Category in the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Awards. Shaolin Tiger was also short-listed in the Speech Pathology Awards – Upper Primary Category, 2010. Polar Boy, Sandy’s first stand-alone novel, was short-listed in 2009 for the CBCA Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers, and her second stand-alone novel, Jaguar Warrior, was a CBCA Notable in 2011. For further information please visit her website: www.sandyfussell.com Rhian Nest James has been working as a freelance illustrator for many years after graduating from Exeter College of Art with an Honours Degree in Illustration. She has produced illustrations for a wide variety of publishers and organisations but her speciality is children’s books having illustrated over 60 children’s books and contributed illustrations to many more. Rhian moved to Sydney from her native Wales in 2002 and she continues to illustrate for others and work on her own projects. She is the illustrator of the best-selling Samurai Kids series (written by Sandy Fussell) and has recently illustrated the award-winning fiction title Toppling written by Sally Murphy. Toppling has won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, Children’s Book - Mary Ryan’s Award, 2010 and the Children’s Book for the 2010 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. It has also been short-listed for the 2010 Speech Pathology Australia, Book of the Year Awards, Upper Primary category and the 2011 Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards, Younger Readers Notable Books.