Jan Thornhill is the author and illustrator of numerous science and nature books for children. She conceived of an alphabet book using North American wildlife and later developed it into her first publication, The Wildlife ABC, which was a finalist for a Governor General’s Literary Award in 1987. A companion title, The Wildlife 123, was published the following year and won the UNICEF Ezra Jack Keats International Award for Excellence in Children’s Book Illustration. More than a dozen books followed, including a series of nonfiction guidebooks for kids on such topics as global warming and the culture of food. One book in particular, I Found a Dead Bird: A Kids’ Guide to the Cycle of Life and Death, received numerous awards including the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Nonfiction. Earlier this fall she published Kyle Goes Alone, the story of a young three-toed sloth who has important business to do on the rainforest floor. Born in Sudbury, Ontario, Thornhill now lives near Havelock, Ontario. She spends her spare time in the woods obsessively collecting and cataloguing wild mushrooms and slime moulds.