Maya Soetoro-Ng

Maya Soetoro-Ng, a former high school history teacher and university instructor, was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, and is the maternal half-sister of President Barack Obama. She says Ladder to the Moon, her first picture book, was inspired by her young daughter Suhaila's questions about her grandmother, Ann Dunham. Maya Soetoro-Ng lives in Hawaii with her husband and two daughters.

Yuyi Morales is the illustrator of Kathleen Krull's Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, whose accolades included a Pura Belpre Award and a Christopher Medal, as well as the Pura Belpre Award-winning Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes. Born and raised in Mexico, she now lives with her family in northern California.