When 8-year-old Amanda wrote a poem to express her love for her recently deceased grandmother, she got her aunt thinking about how to explain death to children. Beyond the Horizon was the result of prayerful pondering and meditative searching for the words her mother would have used. One day the story seemed to write itself. The next step was to find an illustrator who could bring Grandma's story to life. Artist Joann Benzinger appeared almost as magically as the words themselves.