Hal Gold, a thirty-year resident of Japan, is the author of Japan in a Sake Cup and Unit 731 Testimony, as well as two books written in Japanese and dealing with modern Japanese culture. He lives in Kyoto, where he works as a journalist and columnist.Eleanor Coerr was born in 1922 in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Canada. Before becoming a children's book author, she was a newspaper reporter, an editor of a column for children, and taught children's literature at Monterey Peninsula College and creative writing at Chapman College in California. Her works include Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Mieko and the Fifth Treasure, Sadako, and The Big Balloon Race. She died on November 22, 2010 at the… age of 88.
Bruce Degen is the bestselling author and illustrator of the beloved, perennial favorite Jamberry and numerous award-winning books for children. He is the author and illustrator of Daddy Is a Doodlebug and Sailaway Home as well as the illustrator of the highly acclaimed Magic School Bus series by Joanna Cole; the ever-popular Jesse Bear books by Nancy White Carlstrom; Jazzmatazz! by Stephanie Calmenson; and Shirley's Wonderful Baby by Valiska Gregory (available at your local library).Bruce Degen's involvement with art has ranged from painting and printmaking to teaching art in New York City schools and directing an artists' lithography studio in Israel. Mr. Degen studied art at the Cooper… Union and Pratt Institute. He was born in Brooklyn, New York—just like Charlie Muttnik—and now lives with his family in Connecticut.