ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks as always to Barb for all the feedback, and Charlotte for all the feeding, and Erik and David and Mom and Dad and the sisters, who keep me going and the cousins, Emily and Sarah and Rachel and Matt, and Stephanie and Jessica and Rodi and Ashley and Kyle and Megan and Bethany and Kaitlin and Madison and Ethan, a never-ending source of inspiration and information.

Thanks to the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Sher wood branch of the Fairfax County Library, to whom I am indebted for everything I know about the Mongols. The ignorance, as usual, is all mine. For those who are curious about such things, I developed my ideas about riddles for this book reading Archer Taylor’s 1954 Annotated Collection of Mongolian Riddles, a publication of the American Philosophical Society. My favorite version of the Secret History of the Golden Horde is Urgunge Onon’s translation as The Life and History of Chinggis Khan. (Leiden, Brill, 1990). And the Carlsberg Nomad Research Foundation catalog of Nomad Costume (Henny Harold Hanson. Copenhagen: the Rhodos International Science and Art Publishers, 1993) has the most amazing photographs of Mongol Costumes, including some shaman costumes. I borrowed shamelessly to dress the characters in this book!