Christmas ABCs: A Golden Alphabet Book

Andrea Posner-Sanchez has worked as an editor in children’s publishing for more than 20 years, and is a prolific author of books for children. Her books include Always a Princess (Disney Princess), Dog Days (The Secret Life of Pets), and Meet Maui (Disney Moana). She lives in New York City with her husband and their daughter.

The improbable life story of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) included a peculiarly gothic childhood in Ireland during which he was successively abandoned by his mother, his father and his guardian; two decades in the United States, where he worked as a journalist and was sacked for marrying a former slave; and a long period in Japan, where he married a Japanese woman and wrote about Japanese society and aesthetics for a Western readership. His ghost stories, which were drawn from Japanese folklore and influenced by Buddhist beliefs, appeared in collections throughout the 1890s and 1900s. He is a much celebrated figure in Japan.