Susan Strauss is the mother of two children and grandmother to three grandsons. She has worked for fifty years as a speech therapist and a special education consultant. She has spent her entire life working with children as a babysitter, camp counselor, teacher, coach for her daughter's softball team, while being a mother and a grandmother. She loves reading stories to her grandsons and she hopes that children enjoy her story about Ellie as much as she enjoyed writing it. Everyone recognizes Susan as the one who gets a smile out of every child with whom she comes in contact.