DEBORAH KATZ is a Vancouver, BC, nursing professor with nearly 20 years of experience in health care. She is also an artist who, before moving into digital illustration, painted using a multimedia approach that involved acrylics, watercolour, photography, and collage. Her work has appeared in local galleries and various publications. In addition, Deborah has authored and edited many professional publications, as well as written and illustrated a handbook on organic gardening for children.

As a health practitioner, she’s come across many children who feel different for some reason, whether it’s because they have allergies, ADHD, anxiety, illness, or even a different family or cultural background. Whatever it is that makes them feel different, they often feel like they’re the only ones in the world. This motivated her to use her background in science, including the study of wildlife biology, and art to create a book that shows children that being different is much more common than they realize.

Genes make people and animals different in surprising and amazing ways. However, they are also the cause of most rare diseases, which in fact, are not as rare as the name implies. One in 12 people has a rare disease, yet governments and pharmaceutical companies invest very little money in them, and they are the underdogs of health care. In response to this need, the author will be donating proceeds from the sale of this book to the Rare Disease Foundation (for more information on this organization, see the RDF Fact Sheet).

Rare Is Everywhere is Deborah’s first book. She created the illustrations for this book digitally, using the same techniques she formerly used with brush, paint, and canvas.