Cynthia Rylant was born on June 6, 1954 in Hopewell, Virginia. She attended and received degrees at Morris Harvey College, Marshall University, and Kent State University. Rylant worked as an English professor and at the children's department of a public library, where she first discovered her love of children's literature. She has written more than 100 children's books in English and Spanish, including works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her novel Missing May won the 1993 Newbery Medal and A Fine White Dust was a 1987 Newbery Honor book. Rylant wrote A Kindness, Soda Jerk, and A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories, which were named as Best Book for Young Adults. When I was Young in the… Mountains and The Relatives Came won the Caldecott Award. She has many popular picture books series, including Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter and Tabby and High-Rise Private Eyes.
Children's author and illustrator, G. Brian Karas was born in Milford, Connecticut in 1957. After graduating from Paier School of Art, he worked as a greeting card artist and a commercial illustrator. Home on the Bayou, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, was his first illustrated book. Since then, he has illustrated over seventy books for children. Titles authored and/or illustrated by Karas have won numerous other awards. Saving Sweetness written by Diane Stanley was a Capitol Choices Noteworthy Book for Children in 1996, received a Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon in 1996, and was a School Library Journal Best Book of 1996. Like Butter on Pancakes by Jonathan London… was a School Library Journal Best Book of 1995. The Class Artist, written and illustrated by Karas, was a Smithsonian Magazine's Notable Book for Children in 2001 and received the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio 2002 Best Book Gold Award.