"My mother taught me to read before I started school, but I had to wait to be six before I could have a library card."[ Author's quote from her website.] "In 25 years, I wrote 40 books. Most of them came out under my own name, but a few were published under the name T.J. Bradstreet."[ Author's quote from her website.] She lives in Washington State, and is a member of The Authors Guild and the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.[ Houghton Mifflin website] Jean Thesman is a popular and award-winning novelist for young adults whose predominant theme is the heroine finding her place in the world by coming to understand her family. "I loved telling the story, because I really believed that families were made up of the people you wanted, not the people you were stuck with." —Emily Shepherd[Jean Thesman, In the House of the Queen's Beasts (Viking, 2001, p.79).]