Ann Blades is one of Canada’s leading illustrators. Her distinctive watercolors appear in many children’s books, including A Salmon for Simon, which won the Governor General’s Award for Illustration and the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Award; By the Sea: An Alphabet Book, which won the Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Award; and A Dog Came, Too by Ainslie Manson. She is also the author and illustrator of Mary of Mile 18, for which she won the Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children Award. Ann returned to teaching in 2001 and now teaches kindergarten at an inner-city school in Surrey, British Columbia.