The Year My Mother Was Bald

Clare keeps a journal that describes the medical treatments her mother undergoes for breast cancer, her family's experiences, and her own feelings and concerns.

Ann Speltz grew up with seven brothers and sisters in a small town on the Mississippi River in southern Minnesota. She studied literature and art at Macalester College and received her PhD in English from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has been a university teacher and administrator, as well as an editor and developer of humanities curricula for elementary and secondary schools. After completing treatment for breast cancer in 1998, she founded Kid Support (www.kidsupport.org), a nonprofit organization that establishes adult-led peer support groups for the children of cancer patients. She lives with her husband and daughter in Evanston, Illinois.

Kate Sternberg grew up in western New York, where she graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in fine arts and a master's in art education. She is the author and illustrator of Mama's Morning, and has illustrated several other children's books, including The Year My Mother was Bald,?Oh Brother!, and the Phoebe Flower's Adventures series. Kate is also an art teacher at Stone Middle School in Fairfax County, Virginia.