Igor Arien writes children's books, family fantasy, literary fairy tales, and illustrated history. He came to storytelling by a roundabout path: trained as a scientist and engineer, he spent years on advanced aerospace systems and later on decades of technology innovation in Silicon Valley - until he found himself drawn to the questions instruments could not answer. The small, stubborn ones. How a character is formed. What makes someone brave. Why kittens never, ever look before they leap.Today he writes for readers of all ages, blending history, philosophy, and the warmth of a fairy tale. His stories tend to hide their bigger questions inside smaller adventures - a chase, a chimney, a very determined fish - trusting young readers, and the grown-ups reading beside them, to find the deeper thing on their own.He lives and writes in the Arizona desert, where the light is bright, the garden is imaginary, and there is always another story chasing something across it.