Light Speaks

Christine Layton has been a teacher for over thirteen years and uses her early childhood literacy experience to create engaging nonfiction for developing readers. Her work has appeared in magazines, games, and assessments. Luciana Navarro Powell has created art since childhood and became a full-time illustrator in 2001. She moved from watercolor and acrylic paints to the digital brush—loving the freedom and the possibilities of experimentation with textures—and then to mixed media, incorporating photographs and scanned objects with traditional techniques in a digital melting pot. The colors, vibrancy, and warmth of her native Brazil infuse her work with a sunny optimism, humor, and warm human-animal-landscape interactions. As an immigrant, she makes sure that kids can see themselves in her art.