AMANDA CLEARY EASTEP is not related to Beverly Cleary, but wishes she were. She is, however, a children's author, and the Tree Street Kids is her middle grade series. Amanda knows kids because she's still one at heart. When she is forced to act like an adult, she edits nonfiction books by grownup authors. She lives and writes in the mountains of North Carolina but has spent most of her life in the suburbs of Chicago where her characters now live.