About the Author: Sachiko Kashiwaba is a prolific writer of children's and young adult fantasy whose career spans more than four decades. Her works have garnered the prestigious Sankei, Shogakukan, and Noma children's literature awards, and her novel The Mysterious Village Veiled in Mist influenced Hayao Miyazaki's film Spirited Away. She lives in Iwate Prefecture.
About the Illustrator: Miho Satake is a Japanese artist and illustrator. She is best known for illustrating the classic fantasy novel Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones, three books in the
Kiki's Delivery Service series by Eiko Kadono, and also illustrated the twentieth anniversary Japanese editions of the
Harry Potter series.
About the Translator: Avery Fischer Udagawa grew up in Kansas and studied English and Asian Studies at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. She holds an M.A. in Advanced Japanese Studies from The University of Sheffield. She has studied at Nanzan University, Nagoya, on a Fulbright Fellowship, and at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies, Yokohama. She writes, translates, and works in international education near Bangkok, where she lives with her bicultural family.
