Molly Bang was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1943. After college, Bang taught English in Japan. She returned to the U.S and earned her graduate degree in East Asian Languages and Literatures, then worked in India, Bangladesh, and West Africa for Johns Hopkins, Unicef and Harvard. Her first books were translations of folktales, which she also illustrated. Bang has received many awards and honors, including the prestigious Caldecott Honor Book Award three times, for The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher, Ten, Nine, Eight and When Sophie Gets Angry - Really, Really Angry. She won the Giverny Award for Best Science Picture Book for Common Ground in 1998. Ten, Nine, Eight also won the ALA… Notable Childrens Book and When Sophie Gets Angry - Really, Really Angry, won the Charlotte Zolotow Award. It was also an ALA Notable Book and a Jane Addams Children's Honor Book