Window Boy (30 page)

About the Author

Andrea White was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but has spent most of her life in Houston, Texas. She received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas. Her first book,
Surviving Antarctica
, was listed on the reading lists of several states, including the Bluebonnet list. In 2006, she won the Golden Spur award given by the Texas State Reading Association for the best book by a Texas author.

In addition to writing, Ms. White serves as an active community volunteer. Partnering with the Houston Independent School District Board, she and her husband, Houston’s Mayor Bill White, have started the program Expectation Graduation to try to keep more kids in school. The Whites have three children: Will, Elena and Stephen. Stephen, the youngest, is a basketball player.

When his mother started
Window Boy
, Stephen had never heard of Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Britain during World War II. He also had no idea that a boy in a wheelchair could be a basketball genius. Ms. White wrote
Window Boy
with the hope that it will help middle schoolers everywhere to understand that sports heroes come in many packages, and, more importantly, that it will inspire them to learn more about Winston Churchill–an unloved son, a poor student and a mischief maker who, despite what many people said about him, became one of the greatest men in the world.

The text of
Window Boy
is set in Garamond, a typeface attributed to Claude Garamond, who is considered the first independent typefounder. Although he did not invent movable type, he was the first to make type available to printers at an affordable price. In 1541 Garamond was commissioned by François I to cut a sequence of Greek fonts known as the
grecs du roi
. Modern typefaces bearing the Garamond name are not always based on these designs, but they share certain characteristics of timeless beauty and readability.