Contributors

James Bruchac is an award-winning author, traditional storyteller, cultural educator, wilderness expert, and founder and director of the Ndakinna Education Center. James has authored and co-authored over a dozen books for adults and children, including Native American Games and Stories, How Chipmunk Got His Stripes, and The Girl Who Helped Thunder. He is the …

Gerald Dawavendewa is an author and illustrator. He contributed paintings for the illustrations to Rabbit Shoots the Sun: A Hopi Folktale, retold by writer Terri Fields.

Mr. Dawavendewa grew up in the Hopi village of Munqapi, Arizona and the Cherokee woods of Oklahoma. He has worked with the Arizona State Museum as an exhibit specialist and …

Author Terri Fields has retold a Hopi folktale for the Wisdom Tales book Rabbit Shoots the Sun: A Hopi Folktale, illustrated by Gerald Dawavendewa.

Terri Fields is the author of nearly thirty books for children and young adults. Her titles have won multiple awards, including recognition from the American Library Association. She is also an …

Sara Azizi is a writer and storyteller. The aim of her work is to bring the beauty of foreign lands and especially Persian culture to a wider Western audience. A native of Iran, she has lived and studied in Potsdam, New York, and Toronto, Canada. The Knight, the Princess & the Magic Rock is her first book …

D. Yael Bernhard is a busy writer and illustrator of books on many subjects, primarily for children. She wrote (in verse) and illustrated a very special book for Wisdom Tales titled Just Like Me, Climbing a Tree: Exploring Trees Around the World. It is about the sense of wonder and adventure a child would experience climbing …

Isabelle Brent is an internationally known painter and illustrator who has illustrated more than two dozen children’s books, many of which are of traditional fairy tales or stories from the Bible. She has worked on two books for Wisdom Tales Press. Ms. Brent’s most recent book for WTP is The Christmas Horse and the Three Wise Men…

Joseph Bruchac is a writer, editor, educator, and traditional storyteller. He is a citizen and elder of the Nulhegan Abenaki people (a northeastern American Indian tribe). Joseph Bruchac has written two books for Wisdom Tales. Most recently, he contributed First Fire: An Algonkian Story, retold by Joseph and his son James, along with the illustrator David …

Julia Cairns is a full-time fine artist and illustrator known for her colorful images and her joyous, whimsical style. In addition to creating illustrations for children’s books, Julia has exhibited her fine art in numerous shows and galleries. Ms. Cairns provided the distinctive illustrations for Spirit of the Cheetah: A Somali Tale (January 2021), written by Karen …

Helen Cann’s illustrations have graced the pages of almost thirty books. Her most recent illustrations for Wisdom Tales are found in Wonder: A Song of the Seasons, written by Julia Key. The text is in the form of musical poems following two children biking through the countryside from the sea to hills, villages, farms, woods, …

Dawn Casey is a prolific author of children’s books. Her work is inspired by her deep love of nature, her respect for the truth and power of tales of old, and her delight in the wonder of the world.

Ms. Casey is the author of the book Little Bear: An Inuit Folktale, which was illustrated by …

Father John Chryssavgis is an award-winning author of more than 20 books for children and adults, a translator, an educator, and a Greek Orthodox deacon. Along with co-author Marilyn Rouvelas, he has written the Wisdom Tales book Saint Anthony the Great (available December 2015). This will be Father John’s second children’s book after The World My Church…

Winfield Coleman is an illustrator and painter, writer and editor, lecturer, and ethnological researcher who has worked on books, museum catalogs, and research materials on native peoples and their art for many years. For Wisdom Tales, Mr. Coleman illustrated The Thunder Egg, a Native American story about a girl who discovers the egg of a thunderbird. …

Vivian Arviso Deloria is an educator, school administrator, educational consultant, writer, and a specialist in curriculum development. Ms. Arviso, from the Diné people (Navajo), comes from Tohatchi, New Mexico, Fort Defiance Agency. For Wisdom Tales, Vivian Arviso Deloria has contributed the preface to Whispers of the Wolf, written and illustrated by Pauline Ts’o, and the …

Demi is the award-winning author and illustrator of over 130 bestselling children’s books, including The Empty Pot, Jesus, Buddha, The Dalai Lama, One Grain of Rice, The Boy Who Painted Dragons, and The Legend of Saint Nicholas. For Wisdom Tales Press, she has written and illustrated Saint Francis of Assisi…

Dr. Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) (1858-1939) was the first great American Indian author, publishing eleven books from 1902-1918. Wisdom Tales has adapted the work Indian Boyhood of this remarkable man as the basis for a beautifully illustrated book for children. Illustrated by Heidi M. Rasch, and assisduously edited by Michael Oren Fitzgerald, Indian Boyhood portrays Eastman’s childhood, one …

Claire Ewart is a well known illustrator and author of books for children. She has illustrated books for famous authors such as Paul Fleischman (Time Train) and Tomie dePaola (The Legend of the Persian Carpet), who said of her abilities as an illustrator, “No author could ask for a more talented interpreter.” Ms. …

David Kanietakeron Fadden is an Akwesasne Mohawk artist, author, and storyteller who has contributed the illustrations to two Wisdom Tales books. His most recent book, First Fire: An Algonkian Story, was a collaboration with the book’s authors, Joseph Bruchac and James Bruchac. It is a retelling of an Algonkian story of how a boy, with …

Bill Farnsworth is a nationally known illustrator, painter, and educator of art. He has spent the last thirty years creating paintings for magazines, advertisements, children’s books, and fine art commissions of portraits and landscapes. Bill has illustrated the upcoming book The Hunter’s Promise: An Abenaki Tale (coming in September, 2015) for Wisdom Tales. The Hunter’s Promise, …

Michael Fitzgerald (b. 1949) is an author, editor, and publisher of books on world religions, sacred art, tradition, culture and philosophy who is based in Bloomington, Indiana. He has composed over a dozen books that have received over two dozen prestigious awards including the Foreword Book of the Year Award, the Ben Franklin Award and The …

Rodney Frey is an educator and writer on world religions, but particularly on North American Indian traditions. He is Professor of American Indian Studies and Anthropology at the University of Idaho, and lives in Moscow, Idaho. Rodney Frey wrote the foreword for Paul Goble’s Tipi: Home of the Nomadic Buffalo Hunters.

Prof. Frey received a Ph.D. …

Ayesha Gamiet is an artist, illustrator, and art educator, living and working in southeast England. She has contributed the illustrations to the book The Clever Wife: A Kyrgyz Folktale (April, 2022). The story, retold by Rukhsana Khan, is based on a traditional folktale from Kyrgyzstan in central Asia. It tells the tale of a spirited young …

Paul Goble (1933–2017) was an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books. He won both the Caldecott Medal and The Library of Congress’ Children’s Book of the Year Award. Goble illustrated over 30 books in his lifetime. Some of his award-winning books for Wisdom Tales include The Man Who Dreamed of Elk-Dogs & Other Stories from …

Amanda Hall is a multiple award-winning contemporary British illustrator of over two dozen books, which have sold over 600,000 copies around the world.

Her most recent book for Wisdom Tales is Song of the Raven: An Inuit Tale of Harmony with Nature. Amanda explains that the story “is based on Raven myths from Alaska, intricately woven …

Besides being an editor, a teacher, and a storyteller, Gerald Hausman is also the author of many picture books, sixteen of which have won awards. Hausman has written the story for the Wisdom Tales book The Otter, the Spotted Frog & the Great Flood. His friend Ramon Shiloh painted the beautiful pictures for the book. The …

Kim Jacobs is an artist and author with a number of children’s books already to her name. Kim has, so far, completed two books for Wisdom Tales. For her most recent, Princess Sophie and the Six Swans: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm, she wrote the text and did the beautiful illustrations for this retelling of …

Dr. Manoj Jain is a physician and widely published writer on both medical and faith-based subjects. Dr. Jain is the author of the Wisdom Tales book Mahavira: The Hero of Nonviolence, which will be published in July, 2014. It is a powerful but simple narrative of the life of Mahavira. Mahavira was a great spiritual figure …

Jacqueline Jules is a prolific writer of children’s books, a poet, a teacher, and a librarian. Her literary output is impressive: She has written over 20 books for children, including her Zapato Power series and several that have won awards. Ms. Jules’s sensitivity to themes that engage children is evident in her choice of topics such as …

Julia Key is a first-time author and lifelong poet, who has also worked as a translator, editor and teacher. Her children’s picture book for Wisdom Tales, Wonder: A Song of the Seasons, follows two young girls on a journey of discovery from dawn until dusk, and through the natural cycle of the year. The beautifully intricate …

Rukhsana Khan is an award-winning author and storyteller with over thirteen books that range from children’s picture books to young adult novels. Ms. Khan has retold a very worthy folktale for Wisdom Tales children’s book The Clever Wife: A Kyrgyz Folktale (April 2022), with wonderfully colorful illustrations from Ayesha Gamiet. The story is based on a …

Bette Killion  is a writer of poems, stories, and articles for children. Her most recent book with Wisdom Tales Press is Little Lek Longtail Learns to Sleep, which was illustrated by Beatriz Vidal. Little Lek Longtail was an award-winning Finalist in the 2016 USA “Best Book” Awards. Ms. Killion has also written Princess Rosie’s Rainbows, …

Robert Lewis is an award-winning Native storyteller, author, and artist of Cherokee, Navaho, and Apache descent. He has contributed two forewords to Wisdom Tales books. The first is in Pine and the Winter Sparrow (available in February, 2015), which was written by Alexis York Lumbard and illustrated by Beatriz Vidal. His second foreword is to Red …

Rosemary Apple Blossom Lonewolf is an American Indian artist, lecturer, and teacher, enrolled in the Santa Clara Pueblo (Tewa) tribe, located in northern New Mexico, USA. Ms. Lonewolf contributed the foreword to the Wisdom Tales book Whispers of the Wolf, written and illustrated by Pauline Ts’o.

With her father, Joseph Lonewolf, and his sister, Grace …

A busy mother of three and an active author of children’s books, Alexis York Lumbard is the author of a number of award-winning books for Wisdom Tales. Her most recent is a retelling for children of an ancient fable, When the Animals Saved Earth: An Eco-Fable, illustrated by Demi. Before that, it was the touching …

Elsa Marston is the author of almost two dozen fiction and non-fiction books for children and teens. For Wisdom Tales, Ms. Marston has written the biography The Compassionate Warrior: Abd el-Kader of Algeria (co-winner of the 2013 Middle East Book Award for best “Youth Nonfiction”), and the upcoming children’s story book The Olive Tree (coming in November, …

Dr. Joe Medicine Crow is the former Crow Tribal Historian and the oldest living man of the Crow tribe. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the U.S.A.’s highest civilian honor) from President Barack Obama on August 12, 2009 at a ceremony at the White House. In 1939, he was the first member of the Crow tribe …

Khadra Mohammed is the co-author, along with Karen Lynn Williams, of Spirit of the Cheetah: A Somali Tale (January 2021). Julia Cairns contributed the delicate and vibrant illustrations. The book is a Somali coming-of-age tale about a boy who needs to win a race but who must first discover how to capture the spirit of that …

Timothy J. Myers is a writer of books for both children and adults. He has published over ten books for children. Tim has won a number of awards and honors for his work. Besides his work as a writer, Tim Myers is also an artist, a songwriter, and a storyteller, as well as an educator in English …

Seyyed Hossein Nasr (b. 1933) is University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University. The author of over fifty books and five hundred articles, he is one of the world’s most respected writers and speakers on Islam and its mystical dimension, Sufism. His works for Teens include A Young Muslim’s Guide to the Modern World …

Anne Pellowski is an author, an educator, a librarian, and a storyteller, for which she has won numerous honors and awards. Ms. Pellowski is the author of the Wisdom Tales book Story of the Mongolian Tent House, which was illustrated by Beatriz Vidal.

Heidi Rasch is an artist and illustrator of children’s books. She is currently working on two books for Wisdom Tales: Ms. Rasch’s first contribution to our books as an illustrator will be Indian Boyhood: The True Story of a Sioux Upbringing (author: Charles Eastman, Ohiyesa), to be followed by Beautiful Peacemaker, another compilation of writings from …

Marilyn Rouvelas is an author of several books for children. She is the co-author, with Father John Chryssavgis, of the upcoming Wisdom Tales book Saint Anthony the Great (available December 2015). The book is an inspiring biography for children of an important figure (ca. 251–356) in early Christian history.

Ms. Rouvelas has co-written, with Jeanette Aydlette, a …

Alireza Sadeghian is a professional painter and illustrator. In addition to his design and illustration work, he has also taught children’s art classes. He holds a degree in the preservation and restoration of historic sites and monuments, and lives in Isfahan, Iran with his wife and two children. The Knight, the Princess & the Magic Rock is …

Catherine Schuon (1924–2021) was a gifted artist, editor, and translator, fluent in English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian. She had been painting and drawing since she was a young child. Catherine also collected children’s books her entire life and she especially enjoyed the children’s books of illustrator Carol Barker. Catherine was dedicated to helping children appreciate the …

Mahvash Shahegh is an author, educator, researcher, and translator. She has written a book that will be published by Wisdom Tales under the title The Green Musician (coming in August, 2015). It is a children’s book that is being illustrated by Claire Ewart. The Green Musician was translated and adapted from a major Persian epic poem …

American author, illustrator, and storyteller Ramon Shiloh was born in Northern California. His mother, June Le Grand, was a broadcaster and Native storyteller who had a great influence on Ramon and his later career. Shiloh has worked with a number of collaborators to produce books and works in other media. Ramon Shiloh authored and illustrated the book …

Martha Seif Simpson is an author and children’s librarian. Her first children’s book, What NOT to Give Your Mom on Mother’s Day, was released in 2013. Ms. Simpson’s most recent book with Wisdom Tales is Esther‘s Gragger: A Toyshop Tale of Purim, illustrated by award-winning author and illustrator Durga Yael Bernhard. Their first joint …

Charles “Chuck” Trimble is an American Indian author, journalist, and advocate, and a national leader in Indian affairs. He wrote the Foreword to the Wisdom Tales edition of Indian Boyhood: The True Story of a Sioux Upbring. This is an illustrated and adapted version of Charles Eastman’s book, aimed at children.

Mr. Trimble’s writing is much …

Pauline Ts’o is an author, illustrator, photographer, and co-founder of Rhythm and Hues Studios, a computer animation and visual effects company that has won multiple Academy Awards (Life of Pi, Babe, and The Golden Compass—Best Visual Effects). Pauline’s production credits as a digital artist and lighting/art supervisor include Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s …

Frances Tyrrell is an artist who creates finely detailed and imaginative illustrations for children’s books and a wide range of licensed products. She has illustrated The Generous Fish, written by Jacqueline Jules. In the book, Frances Tyrrell’s illustrations delightfully capture a child’s innocent love for the natural world.

A lover of the magical world of …

Pirkko Vainio is an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books. She contributed the flowing, vibrant paintings for Natasha Yim’s lovely story in The Rock Maiden: A Chinese Tale of Love and Loyalty, bringing to life a far-away, long-ago world of separated lovers, sympathetic villagers, magical events, and a helpful goddess.

Pirkko Vainio was born in Finland …

Beatriz Vidal is an internationally known artist and a prize-winning illustrator of children’s books. Her most recent book for Wisdom Tales Press is Story of the Mongolian Tent House, written by Anne Pellowski. Before that, Ms. Vidal illustrated Little Lek Longtail Learns to Sleep, which was written by Bette Killion. Little Lek Longtail…

Lauren Waukau-Villagomez is an educator and author of works on the oral traditions and storytelling of the North American tribes. She was born and raised on the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin, and is a member of the Bear Clan. She is co-author of the book Teaching Native America Across the Curriculum, and has researched and …

Flavia Weedn is a prolific award-winning artist and illustrator. Flavia’s uplifting illustrations grace the upcoming book Angels, which is the newest Wisdom Tales book written by Alexis York Lumbard.

She has written and illustrated 17 books including 10 for children and her lines of greeting cards, translated into many different languages, are sent by over …

Albert White Hat, Sr. (Lakota name: Natan Tokahe, “The First One to Charge”) was a Sicangu (Rosebud) Lakota educator, author, linguist, tribal and spiritual leader, and respected elder. Chief White Hat wrote the foreword to Paul Goble’s book The Boy & His Mud Horses: And Other Stories from the Tipi. His grandfather was Chief Hollow Horn Bear, …

Karen Lynn Williams, along with Khadra Mohammed, is the co-author of Spirit of the Cheetah: A Somali Tale (January 2021). Julia Cairns painted the delicate and vibrant illustrations for the book. The story is a Somali coming-of-age tale about a boy who needs to win a race but who must first discover how to capture the …

Natasha Yim is an American Chinese author of fiction and nonfiction works for children and young adults. Turning to memories of her youth in Hong Kong, she recalled an old legend and created a lovely children’s book for Wisdom Tales — The Rock Maiden: A Chinese Tale of Love and Loyalty, illustrated by the awarding-winning artist and …