Colleayne O. Mastin, as a child, would sit for hours with her father watching the insects, birds and other wildlife that abounded on her family's 18 acres in High River, Alberta. Mastin, who now divides her time between Kamloops and Calgary, is best known for her Nature Canada Series, which includes Canadian Ocean Creatures and Canadian Trees. Illustrations for both the series and The Newest and Coolest Dinosaurs (Grasshopper, 1998), co-authored with Philip J. Currie, Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, are by Jan Sovak, whose highly regarded work appears in more the 60 museums throughout the world. Other titles by Maston and Sovak include Canadian Wild Flowers and Canadian Wild Animals. They are from her imprint of Grasshopper Books in Kamloops, also producer of her Canadian Birds (1995), Canadian Endangered Species (1995) and Canadian Ocean Creatures (1995), all distributed by Raincoast and illustrated by Jan Sovak.

[BCBW 2003] "Kidlit"