Audrey Shafer

Audrey Shafer is an anesthesiologist at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and Professor Emerit, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. She founded Medicine and the Muse, the Arts, Humanities and Medicine Program at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics (https://med.stanford.edu/medicineandthemuse.html). She co-founded Pegasus Physician Writers (http://www.pegasusphysicians.com/)

Originally written for adults, THE MAILBOX is suitable for ages 10 and up. The book offers a sympathetic portrayal of veterans and the burdens they carry throughout their lives, as seen through the eyes of a likable sixth-grader. THE MAILBOX was the 2009 Mountain View Reads Together Book, the 2008 Napa County Reads Book, the 2009-2010 Suburban Mosaic Book of the Year (Cook/Lake County Illinois) and has been on the masterlist for the Black-Eye Susan Award (Maryland), the Sequoyah Award (Oklahoma), the South Carolina Association of School Librarians Junior Book Award, the Great Stone Face Children's Book Award (New Hampshire), the William Allen White Children's Book Award (Kansas), the Virginia Young Readers Program Award, and the Young Hoosier Book Award (Indiana). Additionally, THE MAILBOX has been chosen for Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year, Librarians' Choices Booklist, Junior Library Guild Selection, and Read Aloud America Book List.

Children and adults have responded to THE MAILBOX with amazing creativity - constructing mailboxes, writing letters and essays, creating artwork of all genres - and the author is deeply touched and rejuvenated by the spirit and generosity of her readers.