"The best stories find the author, not the other way around," author Shirley Rousseau Murphy once commented. Murphy, the author of over thirty novels for children and adults, has had a lot of experience with such inspiration. Working in genres from children's books to fantasy novels and mysteries featuring cats, Murphy has been looking for stories for over three decades of professional writing. In picture books such as Wind Child and The Song of the Christmas Mouse, and in longer works for older readers such as Medallion of the Black Hound and Carlos Charles, the latter cowritten with her husband, Patrick, Murphy has demonstrated a keen eye and sensitivity to the needs and wonder of children. "What is more real than the world seen through the eyes of wonder"," Murphy wrote in an article for School Media Quarterly. "Wonder, not cynicism, gives us our true view of reality...