Early Reader: Mercy and the Hippo

About Lauren St. John

Lauren St John grew up surrounded by horses cats dogs and a pet giraffe on a farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe the inspiration for her bestselling White Giraffe and One Dollar Horse series as well as her YA horse novel The Glory. Dead Man''s Cove the first in her Laura Marlin Mystery series won the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award. Before becoming a children''s author she worked as a journalist for The Sunday Times writing about sports music and spies. Along with her veterinary nursing training it served as perfect research for her Kat Wolfe mystery series and The Snow Angel a standalone MG novel. A passionate conservationist Lauren is an Ambassador for the Born Free Foundation a patron for horse sanctuary Mane Chance and the founder of Authors4Oceans. When not rescuing leopards and dolphins she is a full-time valet to her rescued and not in the least demanding Bengal cat Max. To find out more visit her website at www.laurenstjohn.com Nila Aye was born in Rangoon Myanmar arriving in the UK at the age of three and spent most of her childhood dreaming and drawing pictures. Nila studied graphic design at Central St Martins in London graduating in 1995. Nila is an award winning illustrator collaborating on many well-loved children''s books including Nature Trail Fearless Mirabelle Story Soup and the Little Pop-Up series. Her love of visual storytelling and collaboration with authors continues to energise Nila in her mission to bring beautifully illustrated books to a new generation of young readers around the world.