The African orchestra

Wendy Hartmann has been writing for many years. She has had more than forty children's books published. They range from concept and counting, beginner readers, high interest/low vocabulary readers to picture books. Her books have been selected for honour's lists and nominated for awards for writing and illustration. Wendy lives in Table View, Cape Town. She is married and has two daughters. In her spare time, she paints and has taken part in numerous exhibitions and has works in private collections in South Africa as well as overseas. Joan Rankin has illustrated over thirty books for children. She received the South African HAUM Daan Retief prize for children's book illustration in 1986 and the Katrine Harries award for children's book illustration in 1991. She has illustrated numerous books on the McElderry list, including A frog in the bog by Karma Wilson and Off to first grade by Louise Borden. Joan recently won the MER prize for best illustrated children's book for Just Sisi/Net Sisi written by Wendy Hartmann.