About the Author

Judy Froman

I grew up in South Africa and, perhaps because of the injustice all around me, I grew up wanting to change the world. When I was a young girl I had a best friend, Sue. We were inseparable for 5 years until about the age of 10, when she left South Africa after the Soweto Riots in 1976, and went to live in Houston, Texas. Sue wanted to change the world too – only Sue wanted us to adopt every orphan we met and take them under our wing and I wanted to write about everything I saw and explain how we should change things. I was the one who started our newspaper and I let Sue be a contributor. She was the one who found kids at the orphanage who needed help and she made me do their schoolwork for them and invite them home. Sue became a doctor. I became a lawyer/writer.

I studied Law at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and then did a Masters in Human Rights and Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I practised law for a while, first at a law firm and then as a research clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa for Judge Ismail Mahomed who became South Africa’s first Black Chief Justice. I also taught Law for some time. Then I got married, had children and moved to the UK where I live and work now. Stories were always a part of our lives. We read a lot, my kids and I, and when we weren’t reading I was making up stories to tell them. Eventually, I started writing some of them down. And now I am sharing some of those stories, and my ideas on how kids can change the world, with you.

My first novel, Solomon’s Story (Macmillan South Africa)(for older children from about age 12 upwards), won the Bookchat Book of the Year Award on its debut and is currently being taught in schools in South Africa.