Authors in Forthcoming Volumes

Below are some of the authors and illustrators that will be featured in upcoming volumes of SATA. These include new entries on the swiftly rising stars of the field, as well as completely revised and updated entries (indicated with *) on some of the most notable and best-loved creators of books for children.

Libba Bray ▌ Texas-born theatre graduate Bray followed her first big break in publishing—getting a job with a New York City firm—with break number two: making her name known to mainstream teen readers. Her second book, 2003's A Great and Terrible Beauty, mixes history with the supernatural as Bray spins a story about a Victorian boarding-school student coming to grips with her ability to see into the future and enter the spiritual realm.

Joe Cepeda ▌ Cepeda started his career as a book illustrator in the mid-1990s by creating artwork for two works by poet and writer Gary Soto. Often working with texts focusing on Hispanic themes, he has illustrated dozens of picture books in his first decade in the field, and his work has appeared alongside texts ranging from Julius Lester's What a Truly Cool World to stories by Vera Aardema, Robert L. McKissack and Marisa Montes. Cepeda's award-winning paintings and drawings, which feature bold lines and bright, saturated color, have proven their child appeal.

*Alex Flinn ▌ Admitting that "I write for teens because I never finished being one," Flinn had taken the career track of several other successful authors: like novelists John Grisham and Scott Turow, she began her career as an attorney. Prompted by her work with battered women, Flinn often features young men as protagonists, and in novels such as Breathing Underwater and Nothing to Lose she focuses on the dynamics of violence within human relationships.

*Shirley Hughes ▌ One of the United Kingdom's most beloved picture-book artists, Hughes is also one of the most prolific illustrators working today. In countless books that include some of the classic texts of childhood, Hughes creates highly detailed and delicately colored drawings. Her well-known portraits of young, tousle-haired toddlers are noted for including portraits of children from many ethnic groups, and her settings reflect the universality of childhood experience.

*Gwyneth A. Jones ▌ Publishing many of her books for younger readers under the name Ann Hallam beginning in the 1980s, Jones injects her fiction with a strong dose of fantasy. In her novel The White Queen and its sequels, the Aleutian invasion of Earth is the starting point for a gripping saga that parallels the history of Western colonialism. Another popular work, Dr. Franklin's Island, captivates readers in its nightmarish tale about three teens stranded on a South American island who soon discover that their greatest threat is not starvation: it is the twisted plot of a genetic scientist gone mad.

Jill McElmurry ▌ Raised in a family of artists, McElmurry has studiously avoided art training, allowing her quirky take on life to shine through unfettered in a growing list of entertaining picture books. Mad about Plaid prompts youngsters to imagine a world awash in a sea of colorful, clashing patterns, while quiet little dust bunnies are allowed to climb the evolutionary ladder in the author/artist's highly original Mess Pets.

*Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson ▌ A highly praised collage artist and painter whose works have been praised for their folk-art quality, Robinson has contributed her wide-ranging talents to picture books by Mem Fox and Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert. She also weaves stories of her own childhood, growing up in Chicago's black neighborhood during the 1940s, into A Street Called Home. The book's creative, accordion-style design allows readers to view the colorful hustle and bustle created by street vendors, shoppers, and other city traffic as a single extended page.

*Jonathan Stroud ▌ Starting his writing career by bringing new energy to musty subjects ranging from the history of ancient Rome to stories about pirates and Viking marauders, Stroud captured the attention of critics and readers with the first volume of his "Bartimaeus" fantasy trilogy in 2003. In the award-winning The Amulet of Samarkand as well as its sequels The Golem's Eye and The Last Siege, readers meet a thousand-year-old genie who doesn't quite play by the rules in granting wishes to the boy who has conjured him up in hopes that Bartimaus will help thwart the machinations of an evil magician.

Matt Tavares ▌ Raised on America's favorite pastime, Boston-based author and illustrator Tavares positions the game of baseball in the center of the books he creates for young readers. Oliver's Game focuses on the bond love of the game creates between a boy and an old man whose dreams of playing pro ball were cut short by World War II. In Zachary's Ball Tavares weaves another magical story for younger fans, this time tapping the special power of the game's holy grail: a fly ball caught by a fan in Fenway Park.

Ruth Vander Zee ▌ Beginning her writing career after working as a middle-school teacher, Vander Zee creates books that tap her talent for storytelling and draw on her perceptive insights into the way childhood perceptions shape our world. While the Holocaust has been the subject of many books, Erika's Story provides a haunting but life-affirming introduction for younger children, and the pervasive racism of the 1930s is illuminated for older readers through Vander Zee's Mississippi Morning, as the book's young white protagonist learns to see life in the rural South through the eyes of a black friend.