ANOOKA'S ANSWER

Near the end of the Stone Age, nearly 12,000 years ago, a young woman named Anooka discovers her talent for shaping the strange riverbed mud into small animal figures, but when she is forbidden to make the animals, she questions the only traditions she has ever known.

Marjorie Cowley has taught prehistoric archaeology to students of all ages, but now devotes her time to writing for young people. For Clarion, she has written Dar and the Spear-Thrower, about a boy living during the Ice Age. Ms. Cowley lives in Los Angeles, California.

Bryan Barnard is an award-winning illustrator who studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He lives in Friday Harbor, Washington.