Sara's Russian grandmother has requested that there be no presents at her seventy-eighth birthday party so Sara must think of a gift from her heart. By the illustrator of Gabriella's Song.
Cari Best grew up in New York City in an extended European family dominated by confident, beautiful women who loved to talk. As a result, she was a very shy child who found out, happily, that she didn't need to talk to be a good writer or a good athlete. One of the highlights of her childhood was winning a school-wide spelling bee with the words "aurora borealis". One of the highlights of her adulthood was being invited to the Baseball Hall of Fame to talk about her childhood. A graduate of Queens College (City University of New York), Cari Best holds an MLS degree from Drexel University (Philadelphia). She has served as special librarian at the International Reading Association (1975-76), librarian at a public library, and is currently editorial director at a film company (since 1986). Cari Best has written several picture books including the 1995 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer's Award Winner Taxi! Taxi!, Red Light, Green Light, Mama and Me (Orchard), Getting Used to Harry (Orchard), Top Banana (Orchard), Montezuma's Revenge (Orchard), Last Licks: A Spaldeen Story (DK Ink), and most recently, the acclaimed Three Cheers for Catherine the Great (DK Ink), which received starred reviews in Publisher's Weekly, School Library Journal, and Booklist.
For her latest work, Three Cheers for Catherine the Great! from DK Ink, Giselle Potter was inspired in part by her grandmother, Alice, who had her own special quality...a quality that made her seem like a queen-Queen Alice! Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, award-winning artist Giselle Potter received her B.A. from Rhode Island School of Design. To create her art, she begins with pencil drawings and adds colored ink, watercolor, gouache, or collage. Her work is influenced by folk art, Mexican ex-votos, Italian frescos-Fra Angelico, Giolto, Indian & Persian miniatures, Chagall, as well as current illustrators like Marya Kalman and Lane Smith. Ms. Potter has illustrated several picture books, including Gabriella's Song (Atheneum Books for Young Readers) by Candace Fleming, an ALA Notable Book, which received numerous starred reviews and about which Kirkus Reviews said was "dazzlingly captured in a palette of fresh colors and droll characterizations." Her work frequently appears in The New Yorker, and she was chosen a Publishers Weekly "Flying Start" in 1997. She lives in upstate New York.
