Ray Anthony Shepard is a former teacher and retired editor-in-chief of a major education publishing company. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Education and the Harvard Graduate School Education where he received a Martin Luther King Jr. Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. His other books for children include Now or Never!: 54th Massachusetts Infantry's War to End Slavery.
Keith Mallett was born in Pennsylvania and received his formal art training at the Art Students League, and Hunter College in New York City. He has worked as a freelance artist for fifteen years and was the in-house artist for Frontline Art Publishers. He also illustrated How Jelly Roll Morton Invented Jazz (Jonah Winter). Keith's work is currently published by Canadian Art Prints, one of the largest fine art publishers in the world.