Deborah Hopkinson

Deborah Hopkinson grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts, and received a BA in English from the University of Massachusetts and an MA in Asian Studies from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. She is the author of more than seventy books for young readers, including picture book and middle grade fiction and nonfiction. She lives in Oregon with her family and a menagerie of pets.

Don Tate grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, where he learned about Black history at the Center for Study and Application of Black Theology. He grew up to become an author and illustrator of numerous award-winning children's books, including It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw and Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton, both of received Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Honor awards. He lives in Austin, Texas.