L

Dion Leonard is an Australian who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has competed in some of the world’s toughest ultra marathons across inhospitable landscapes including running across the brutal Moroccan Sahara desert twice in the 250km Marathon Des Sables and twice across South Africa’s Kalahari Desert. Dion’s latest race across the Gobi Desert in China turned out to be extraordinary. He fell in love with a stray dog that followed him during the week, changing both of their lives forever.

Dean Lorey has written extensively for television and movies. Nightmare Academy is his first book for children. He hopes it will keep you up all night.

Dean lives in Calabasas, California, with his wife, Elizabeth, and their sons, Chris and Alex.

LOIS LOWRY, author of over thirty novels and twice winner of the Newbery Medal for The Giver and Number the Stars,was born on the 20th of March 1937 in Hawaii. Her father was an Army dentist and the family lived all over the world. She went to Brown University, but left to get married and a raise a family of four children. She settled in Maine, and returned to college receiving a degree from the University of Southern Maine. She fulfilled a childhood dream when she started writing in the 1970s.

Iain Lawrence was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, the second of four children. He studied journalism in Vancouver and