Acknowledgments

With thanks:

to Jane Langton, Jill Paton Walsh, and John Rowe Townsend; roaming about Lucignano, Arezzo, Siena, and Cortona together gave me a golden week to remember;

to Mei-Mei Ellerman for opening Il Vallone to us;

to Mary Norris for her companionship in Spoleto;

to Ann, Sid, and Heather Seamans for company in Castiglione del Lago, and to Anna Tapay for hospitality at Villa Elianna;

to Paolo Chiocchetti for help in Florence;

to Joseph Maguire for helpful conversations about the possible effects on dwarves of having an eighth sibling;

to Andy Newman for tending to the most pertinent matters at home while I traveled to the Concord Public Library and to Tuscany;

to the reliable crew at HarperCollins: Judith Regan, Cassie Jones, Jennifer Suitor, and Carl Raymond;

to William Reiss of John Hawkins and Associates;

to David Groff for literary counsel;

to Douglas Smith for the particular magic of the jacket art and interior decorations.