Sherry Shahan is a photojournalist and the author of picture books and middle grade and young adult novels. As part of her research, she's ridden on horseback into Africa's Maasailand, hiked through a leech-infested rain forest in Australia, shivered inside a dogsled for the first part of the famed 1,049 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, rode-the-foam on a long-board in Hawaii, and spun around dance floors in Havana, Cuba. Shahan lives in California.