Award-winning author Jane Kurtz spent most of her childhood in Ethiopia and most of her adult life trying to capture bits of that childhood in picture books and novels for young readers. She has also written about her own children's lives in such books as Do Kangaroos Wear Seatbelts? (Penguin) and about people who change the world in such books as Martin's Dream (Simon & Schuster) and the middle grade novels that accompany the 2010 American Girl Doll of the Year, Lanie, an outside-loving girl who discovers she can help the earth from her own back yard. Jane lives in Portland, Oregon, and travels nationally and internationally to speak and to volunteer for Ethiopia Reads, a nonprofit planting the first children's libraries in Ethiopia.Award-winning author Jane Kurtz spent most of her childhood in Ethiopia and most of her adult life trying to capture bits of that childhood in picture books and novels for young readers. She has also written about her own children's lives in such books as Do Kangaroos Wear Seatbelts? (Penguin) and about people who change the world in such books as Martin's Dream (Simon & Schuster) and the middle grade novels that accompany the 2010 American Girl Doll of the Year, Lanie, an outside-loving girl who discovers she can help the earth from her own back yard. Jane lives in Portland, Oregon, and travels nationally and internationally to speak and to volunteer for Ethiopia Reads, a nonprofit planting the first children's libraries in Ethiopia.