Sylvia Rouss grew up in California and first began writing for the children in her preschool class. As an early childhood educator, she was the recipient of the Samuel Glasner Creative Teaching Award and the Grinspoon Steinhardt Award for excellence in Jewish education. Sylvia credits the children in her classroom for her inspiration. She is the author of more than 50 books including the Sammy Spider series, as well as, The Littlest series. She received the National Jewish book Award for her story, The Littlest Pair, and she received the Sydney Taylor Honor Award for Sammy Spider's First Trip to Israel and Mitzvah the Mutt. In addition, Sammy Spider's First Shavuot and Tali's Jerusalem Scrapbook were named Sydney Taylor Notable Books. Sylvia resides in Oxnard, California with her husband, Jeff, and has three married adult children and six grandchildren. Besides family and writing, she maintains a busy schedule that includes lecturing and book readings throughout the United States, Europe and Israel.
