Seli­na Alko spends her days in Brook­lyn, NY, meld­ing words and mixed-media art to con­vey sto­ries of hope and inspi­ra­tion. Grow­ing up in Cana­da, with a Turk­ish Jew­ish father who spoke sev­en lan­guages, and a Jew­ish moth­er who worked in the family’s cen­tu­ry-old met­al recy­cling busi­ness, she was sur­round­ed by the melody of words and sto­ries from dif­fer­ent places. Her children’s books include: Shar­ing Shalom (a Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award win­ner), The Case for Lov­ing: The Fight for Inter­ra­cial Mar­riage, I is for Immi­grants, and Stars of the Night: The Coura­geous Chil­dren of the Czech Kindertransport.