In June 1783, three-year-old Sarah Whitcher wanders into the woods and disappears. For three long days, friends and neighbors search fruitlessly for her. Then a stranger leads the desperate family to a pine tree beneath which the child lies. Sarah tells her rescuers of the "big black dog" that kept her warm every night--but the bear tracks encircling her tell a different tale.

"A treat for 'pioneer story' buffs."--School Library Journal

"Since graduating from Johnson State College Vermont with majors in both art and athletic training, I have worked as a coach, trainer, energy auditor for the Extension Service, and mostrecently as Elderhostel Director and cross-country ski instructor at the Craftsbury Sports Center before turning to writing full-time.

"I have many passions. I am an athlete, naturalist, artist, and a writer, and all of the things I do are rooted in the Northeast Kingdom. I run five to ten miles each morning, cross-country ski, mountain bike, swim, and play tennis. I also played field hockey all across the country for many years. I love the outdoors, and study and sketch birds and wildflowers which are most often the subjects of my watercolor paintings. For the past seven years, my husband, Tom, and I have beenbuilding a timber-frame house. We both enjoy working with wood, and Tom shares my love of the land, sports and animals: we have a Morgan horse, five dogs, and eight cats. We lovegardening and have planted an orchard of old apple varieties. And I love histories and walking old cemeteries.

"My first children's book, The Canada Geese Quilt, grew out of my love andadmiration for my grandmother, Helen Urie Rowell, and a special quilt the two of us made together. My grandmother began quilting when she was in her sixties, and over the next fifteen years she made over 230 quilts. I designed about twenty of them. Most of them are of birds, wildflowers and starry skies, but one is of Canada geese -- and that inspired the book.

"My husband and I live in Albany, Vermont, where I am always at work on new books."

copyright (c) 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.