Elizabeth Laird, a well-respected and award-winning author of children's picture books and easy readers, is best known for her novels for young adults. Her most widely read book, Loving Ben--published in England as Red Sky in the Morning--tells about a young girl caring for her hydrocephalic baby brother. The novel was a critical success upon publication in 1989, and has continued to be a favorite in classrooms around the world. A prolific writer, Laird has paired a love of travel with a love for books in a long list of novels about Muslim countries, the Middle East, and East Africa. Her Kiss the Dust deals with the realties of a Kurdish rebellion in Iraq; Forbidden Ground is set in a nameless North African country and deals with a young girl coming to grips with moral issues; the "Wild Things" series is set in Kenya and Ethiopia and feature a core cast of characters who deal with wildlife issues in each volume.