Through his writing, Michael J. Rosen addresses some of the issues that matter most to him--"but sideways," he says. "I can't begin head-on, just writing about a cause or a problem. Even though I try to talk about human predicaments and human wrongs--toward animals, the earth, or one another--I need to start with a single image, one odd turn of events, or a particular remark." An acclaimed author, editor, and illustrator of some forty books for both adults and young people, Michael J. Rosen draws much of his inspiration from his lifelong experience with animals, whether as a college zoology major, a bird watcher, a dog trainer, or the founder of a granting program to help humane societies care for less fortunate cats and dogs. CHASE-R: A NOVEL IN E-MAILS, for instance, follows the reaction of an animal-loving teenage boy who is horrified to encounter a culture of deer hunting when his family leaves Columbus, Ohio, to live in a house in the country. "When I moved from the major city where I'd lived most of my life to a rural community, the changes were monumental," the author notes. "And I often thought, What if I hadn't actually chosen to live here? I wrote CHASE-R not only to imagine this new way of life from a teenage point of view, but also to consider the complicated (and always teetering) balance we try to achieve, living, as we all do, amid an ever-diminishing natural world." Among the "issues" that matter most to Michael J. Rosen, dogs and their welfare might well top the list. It was the author's fascination with everything canine that led him to discover the story behind THE DOG THAT WALKED WITH GOD. "I found this extraordinary transcript of an oral history told by one of the last remaining Kato, an Indian people who once lived in northern California," he says. "The story was recorded in a very odd, reiterating language. So I tried to bring it into English. Into poetry." What's especially compelling about this creation myth, he says, is that "God doesn't create the dog; God already HAS a dog. Beyond the beauty of their creation story, I wanted to underscore the fact that, to the Kato people, the world was unimaginable without the presence of a dog. And that, to many of us, is still true." Michael J. Rosen's love of the natural world factors also in AVALANCHE, a hurtling picture-book journey from A to Z that takes the reader from earth to the stars and back. "Since I've never skied, AVALANCHE is the closest I've come to that crazy, skillful maneuvering over the snow," the author says. "I tried to find rhythms and rhymes to sweep across an alphabetical landscape the way an avalanche--or a skier, I suppose--rushes headlong across a bright, blustery world." When he's not writing, editing, or drawing, Michael J. Rosen likes to garden, cook, and collect--dog paraphernalia, of course. "I have lots of old dog books, sculptures and pictures that kids and folk artists have made of their dogs, dog toys, old wooden dog-shaped door stops, and vintage dog pillows," he says. "My office is just a kennel of drawn, carved, modeled, sewn, and colored dogs." Born and reared in Columbus, Ohio, the author now lives with his family--which of course includes dogs and a cat--on ninety forested acres in central Ohio.