I was raised with four sisters in a small town in southern Illinois. It's a place I still consider home, even though I've lived most of my life as an adult in Arizona.

My childhood was immersed in everything outdoors; regular family camping trips, daily jaunts to neighborhood woods and creeks in search of tadpoles and turtles -anything to do with nature. At home I was fortunate to foster a love of animals with the pets that shared our lives, as well as foster a love of reading with the books that shared our lives. Books decorated most of the walls that made up our home. My parents encouraged a love of literacy, and reading was a regular part of our lifestyle as much as eating breakfast or sleeping at night.

Although I struggled academically in elementary school, my love for books carried over into a love of writing. As a child, I would often pretend that I was an author and an illustrator, creating stories with subjects influenced by my passion for nature and animals. I wrote on anything I could place a pen on: notepads, construction paper, lined paper, plain paper. I folded, I stapled and I wrote. I gave these homemade stories to my parents as gifts, to children I babysat, or often just wrote for the sheer joy of creating something. It's great fun to share these stories with children in schools today. Together we giggle at my attempts to spell perfectly and at silly drawings of horses who wear hats and dresses.

My recent books continue to draw from the inspiration around me, much of the same inspiration that fed me when I was younger: a love of the outdoors, wildlife, family, books and reading.

Jennifer Ward graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in education. She taught elementary school for eleven years and currently writes full-time for children. She lives in southern Arizona with her husband and daughter.

Biography provided by Jennifer Ward.