About the Author

Annie Laura Smith has written five historical novels for young readers. She and her son and daughter were at Cape Canaveral on June 18, 1983, and watched Challenger launched into space with Sally Ride aboard as the Mission Specialist. Smith lives in Huntsville, Alabama, near the Marshall Space Flight Center. She is the author of an Early Reader biography of Sally Ride, the first woman to go into space and Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. Wernher von Braun is her third Early Readers biography. Her other books include: The Legacy of Bletchley Park, Will Paris Burn?, Saving da Vinci, Alexandra's Secret, Twilight of Honor, Whispers in the Wind, and First Place, Love.