Spectacularly Beautiful: A Refugee's Story - Hardcover

Lisa Lucas started her career writing for Reader's Digest Magazine. She later wrote extensively on literacy and health, scripts for movies and television and historical fiction for Middle Readers. She was awarded the CIBC Children's Miracle Maker Award and the Canada Post Community Literacy Award. Five years ago, she joined forces with Laurie Stein, a Canadian illustrator, and together they have created over 20 children's books. Their work was recently recognized by The Canadian Children's Book Centre.

Laurie Stein graduated in 1985 from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, now OCADU, after receiving her BA in Economics at Western U and graduating with a degree in CLASSICAL ANIMATION from Sheridan College in Oakville. Since then, she has been illustrating freelance for books, magazines, apps, promotion and advertising. Her clients include Scholastic, Pearson, MKids, Nelson, Readers' Digest, Sick Kids Hospital, and more. She has worked extensively for a world-renowned children's hospital and her work lines the walls and ceilings throughout. Laurie volunteers teaching painting to those living with cancer through the Art for Cancer Foundation. She lives in Toronto with her husband, three kids, and two big dogs.

Based on a true refugee story, this deep and hopeful book sports colorful, simplified shapes depicting students and their teacher. Stein does not attempt realistic depictions. The children look like jelly beans with limbs, facial features, and hair, and their all-blue teacher is only very slightly more detailed; all are digitally collaged over black-and-white photos of a Western classroom. This surprisingly effective choice allows readers to concentrate on the characters’ emotions...This heartening, well-crafted story refreshingly places its emphasis on its protagonist’s resilience. -Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

Stein’s illustrations — black-and-white photographs of the classroom, school and nearby areas, populated with cartoon images done with the simplest of lines and filled in with flat colors...— effectively bring out Lucas’s poignant parable. -The New York Times Book Review