Betsy Cromer Byars was born in1928. She graduated from Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina. While she was in graduate school, she began writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post and Look. Byars writes novels for young people. She is an expert at tapping in to the pain of adolescence, using bits of her own experience to flavor her characters. She is author of more than 23 books and has won numerous awards. Her book about a 14-year-old girl and her mentally retarded brother, The Summer of the Swans (1970), won the Newberry Award as the most distinguished contribution to children's literature that year. Other books include The 18th Emergency (1973), The TV Kid (1976), and After… the Goat Man (1995).
Ronald Himler was born in Cleveland Ohio. He received a degree in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1960. He held several jobs as a commercial artist before quitting his job and going to Europe. Once there, he conducted independent research at the major museums, including the Louvre in Paris, the Uffizi gallery in Florence, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In 1972, he illustrated his first picture book, Glad Day and Other Classical Poems for Children. He has illustrated more than 150 picture books for children including The Lily Cupboard by Shulamith Levey Oppenheim, Hook Moon Night by Faye Gibbons, and The Wall and Fly Away Home, both by Eve Bunting. He authored and… illustrated several books including The Girl on the Yellow Giraffe and Wake up Jeremiah. He has won numerous awards including the Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators, The Christopher Award, the Parents Choice Gold Award, and a Children's Book Council Award. His oil paintings of Native American and western culture have appeared in fine art galleries across the country. His works have been featured in Art of the West magazine and on the PBS television program Arizona Illustrated.