Ryan, Valerie: - As a Special Education Teacher, Valerie has enjoyed a lifetime of teaching and learning. It is incredible how much learning a teacher can experience when teaching. As she has been privileged to teach all age groups to read and write, count and understand basic Maths from 4 years to adults, it never ceases to amaze her how much more there is to learn about learning. Valerie has never had a student, regardless of individual difficulties, that couldn't learn, and achieve, something of importance to them. Valerie believes teaching is about learning from the student: what it is they want to learn about, what difficulties they face and, how best to present that topic to them. She learned creativity from her father who was a man light years ahead of his time. It has helped her scores of times to break through the barriers that surround some students (metaphorically speaking). Valerie also learned resilience from her mother and it is this resilience that she has given Amy in these books.