MEET THE AUTHOR
Sylvia Taylor-stein
Author, Speaker, and Grandmother
Sylvia Taylor-Stein wrote her first poem at the age of eight and has been writing ever since. An artist and songwriter with a lifelong love of words and images, she spent decades pouring her creative gifts into her family, her community, and her faith. Bible Times in Riddles & Rhymes is the work that drew those threads together.
Her love for the heroes and heroines of the Bible began at five years old, at her Grandma Lottie’s kitchen table in the Smoky Mountains. Grandma Lottie told Bible stories with a gift for drama and detail that made them unforgettable. David, Esther, Daniel, and Ruth were real, vivid, and alive. Sylvia never forgot those stories. Decades later, the legacy her grandmother left her became the seed of a book designed to help another generation remember.
A Story of Its Own
The idea for Bible Times in Riddles & Rhymes grew the way the best ideas often do: organically, through family. Sylvia began writing Bible-based rhymes for her own grandchildren, then shared them with friends and fellow parents. The response was immediate. People wanted copies. They wanted to use them with their own children and grandchildren. They wanted something they could hold.
What started as a handful of rhymes at a kitchen table became a beautifully illustrated hardback featuring 52 stories from Genesis through the Gospels.
Sylvia and her husband, Marc, live in Southern California. They have five children and four grandchildren, who continue to inspire the work and remind Sylvia every day why it matters.
MEET THE ILLUSTRATOR
Wilson Gandolpho
Wilson Gandolpho lives in São Paulo, Brazil, where he produces daily comic strips for large media outlets. When he saw the call for an illustrator who knew the Bible, he felt drawn to apply.
“I never believed I would get the job, but the requirement to know the Bible caught my attention, and I think God made me apply. It was clear that this work was not something common. I had never done a job at this level of art and with this amount of scenes. Studying the Bible to draw the scenes also made me evolve in the Scriptures. I have realized that the Lord has been by my side, testing me, teaching me, and preparing me for the future He has for me. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity I was given to illustrate Bible Times in Riddles & Rhymes.”
– Wilson Gandolpho
Wilson’s illustrations give the book its distinctive character. Each scene was researched, drawn, and rendered with the care of an artist who came to see the work as a calling.
