The Hero Schliemann

LAURA AMY SCHLITZ has spent most of her life working as a librarian and professional storyteller. She has also been a playwright, a costumer, and an actress, and her plays for young people have been produced in professional theaters all over the country. She says, "When I began researching Schliemann's life, I found that he was even more remarkable than I had previously suspected. What a story! Shipwrecks and poverty and wealth and strokes of fantastic life and a Great Love and buried treasure . . . and it was all true. Then I read more, and discovered that some of it wasn't true. My romantic hero was a mythmaker and a liar. At that point, I was really hooked, because I've always been attracted to people who survive by their imagination."ROBERT BYRD is currently teaching children's book illustration at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He is the author-illustrator of many books for children, including LEONARDO, BEAUTIFUL DREAMER, winner of the Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction; FINN MACCOUL AND HIS FEARLESS WIFE; and most recently, THE HERO AND THE MINOTAUR: THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF THESEUS. He says, "I did not want to make Herr Schliemann too serious; I tried to show a sense of humor, adventure, curiosity, courage, and even pomposity. I was particularly conscious of showing a variety of settings that would give the reader the full scope of his exotic travels."