Anne Sibley O'Brien knew she wanted to be an artist by the time she was seven. Born in Chicago, she moved with her family to New Hampshire on her first birthday. Six years later, her parents were hired as medical missionaries and assigned to serve in South Korea. She was raised bilingual and bicultural, living in the cities of Seoul and Taegu, and on the island of Kojedo.
Returning to the U.S. at age 19, Annie attended Mount Holyoke College where she majored in studio art. She spent her junior year back in Korea at Ewha Women's University in Seoul, where she studied Korean arts, including Oriental painting. During college, she decided that she wanted to pursue a career in children's book illustration. The Legend of Hong Kil Dong: The Robin Hood of Korea is the 25th picture book she has illustrated, and the 10th she has written.
She has illustrated more than twenty picture books, including the Jamaica books by Juanita Havill (Houghton Mifflin) and the Talking Walls books by Margy Burns Knight (Tilsbury). Anne lives on Peaks Island in Maine.
Dara loves the stories her grandmother, Lok Yeay, tells of the Cambodian countryside where she grew up-stories of family, food, and the stars above. But there are darker stories too-stories of war and loss.
"[T]his moving depiction of the special relationship between a grandmother and a grandchild has broad appeal." --Kirkus Reviews
" A loving, intergenerational story about loss and perseverance that feels honest, empowering, and--best of all--hopeful." --Booklist
This book explores the work of Mohandas Gandhi and his legacy through fifteen profiles of activists who chose nonviolent resistance as the path to change. The book focuses on heroic individuals who were in direct physical danger and chose to respond with nonviolence.
"This mother-and-son effort earns high marks both for adding less-celebrated names to the pantheon of peacemongers and for noting that the nonviolent approach to civil protest doesn't always work—which makes the courage of those who engage in it all the more exemplary." --Kirkus Reviews
ERRATA
Pages VI and 89: The year is listed as 1967. This should read 1976. Running footers between pages 91-95 also list the year incorrectly as 1967.
Hong Kil dong, the son of a powerful minister, is not entitled to a birthright because his mother is a commoner. After studying martial arts, divination, swordplay, the uses of magic, and the wisdom of the Book of Changes, Kil Dong sets off on a quest to discover his destiny and claim his rightful role as a wise and just leader.
". . . will entice reluctant readers as well as adventure lovers."
— School Library Journal
"WOW! — no, make that OMANAH!"
— The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
