Author Will Hobbs has a unique way of beginning each day. He winds up a toy pterodactyl and watches it cross his desk. By the time it gets to the other side, he must start writing. That's the deal. For about six hours a day he commits himself to the task of putting something on paper, and, he once explained in an interview for Authors and Artists for Young Adults (AAYA), "I owe at least three books, especially Beardance, to that little guy. I might have given up if it hadn't been for my deal with the pterodactyl." Hobbs's wilderness-based novels, which include Bearstone, Kokopelli's Flute, and Far North, have been well received by both his young adult audience and reviewers alike. He knows this audience very well because he taught reading and English for seventeen years, mostly in Durango, Colorado.

Hobbs's father was an engineer in the...