Cynthia Grady

Cynthia Grady is a former middle-school librarian and the author of Like a Bird: The Art of the American Slave Song and I Lay My Stitches Down: Poems of American Slavery. She holds master's degrees in children's literature, library studies, and classics/philosophy/liberal studies.

Amiko Hirao earned a degree in art history in her native Japan and later graduated from Rhode Island School of Design. She has illustrated Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Tulip at Bat, and Just What Mama Needs.