Bruce Coville was born in Syracuse, New York, on May 16, 1950. He spent one year at Duke University in North Carolina. Coville started working seriously at becoming a writer when he was seventeen. He was not able to start selling stories right away, so he had many other jobs, including toymaker, gravedigger, cookware salesman, and assembly line worker. Eventually, Coville became an elementary teacher, and worked with second and fourth graders. Coville married Katherine Dietz an artist, and they began trying to create books together. It wasn't until 1977 that they finally sold their first book, The Foolish Giant. They joined together on two other books after that, Sarah's Unicorn and The… Monster's Ring, and followed them with Goblins in the Castle, Aliens Ate My Homework, and The World's Worst Fairy Godmother.Elizabeth Levy was born and grew up in Buffalo, New York. She attended Brown University, majoring in history. After graduation, Levy went to New York City and worked as a researcher for Howard Cosell at ABC-TV and then for Senator Robert Kennedy. She has been writing for nearly thirty years and has written over 80 books. Levy has won the Georgia State Award, the Maryland State Award and was a Virginia State Award Nominee in 2001 for My Life as a Fifth Grade Comedian, she was on the ABA Pick of the Lists in 2000 for Seventh Grade Tango. Levy also appeared in the New York Public Library 100 Best Books of 1997, was an Arkansas State Award, Runner Up in 1992, was Nominated for the Florida Sunshine State Award, the New Mexico, Land of Enchantment Award, and the Nevada Award, for Keep Ms. Sugarman in the Fourth Grade. She earned a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year in 1977 for Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win: The United Mineworkers Story and an Outstanding Science book for Children from the National Science Teachers Association, for Before You Were Three in 1977.
Mordicai Gerstein was born in Los Angeles, California in 1935. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute in California. He designed and directed animated films for twenty-five years. In 1970, he met author Elizabeth Levy, who asked him to illustrate her children's book Something Queer Is Going On. He has illustrated all of the books in her Something Queer series. He decided to try his hand at writing. His first picture book, Arnold of the Ducks, was published in 1980 and adapted into an animated film. He has also retold many ancient religious stories, such as that of Jonah in his book, Jonah and the Two Great Fish. He has won many awards including 2 CINE Golden Eagle Awards from the… International Film and Television Festival of New York.