In the Shadow of the Alamo

Sherry Garland, a fifth-generation Texan, was born in the Rio Grande Valley, and moved with her family more than twelve times in her first fourteen years.For a while she lived on a dairy farm in central Texas with her eight siblings (she was the youngest of nine children) and had her own pet pig and calf, as well as chickens, dogs, and twenty--twenty!--cats.Too busy climbing trees to write much during those years, she spent most of her time alone, preferring to play in the woods by herself rather than with other children."Most of the characters in my novels are like that child," writes Garland, "loners who love nature, who are shy or different, and who don't fit in."She started writing in high school, and her words first appeared in print in 1982. Since then Garland has written more than two dozen books and received more awards--from the ABC Children's Bookseller's Choice Award to the Western Writers of America Spur Award--than the number of cats she could fit in her lap as a child on her family's farm.It was a painting of William Travis at the Alamo, which Garland saw every morning as she entered the William B. Travis Elementary School, that she credits with inspiring her life-long interest in the Alamo. Eventually, the Alamo served as the subject for three of her books, A Line in the Sand, Voices of the Alamo, and In the Shadow of the Alamo.Indeed, many of her stories are set in Texas. Indio, the story of a Native American girl confronting the arrival of the Spaniards in the 1500's, is set in the rugged Big Bend region of Texas. Letters from the Mountain is set on a hilltop in central Texas where Garland lived in her pre-teen years. And Shadow of the Dragon, about a Vietnamese teen trying to fit into American society, is set in Houston, where Garland lived for twenty-two years before moving with her husband to two wooded acres in central Texas.Garland, Sherry is the author of 'In the Shadow of the Alamo' with ISBN 9780152017446 and ISBN 0152017445.