Joanna Cole was born in Newark, New Jersey on August 11, 1944. She attended the University of Massachusetts, Indiana University, and City College of New York where she earned a degree in Psychology. Ms. Cole has worked as an elementary school teacher, a librarian, and a children's book editor. As a child, she loved science and explaining things and this is why she started writing children's books. She writes fiction and non-fiction titles. Her most well-known series are the Magic School Bus and the "Body." Cole's books have received a number of honors. A Horse's Body and A Snake's Body were both named Outstanding Science Trade Books for children by the joint committee of the National… Science Teachers Association and the Children's Book Council. In 1982, A Snake's Body was named a Children's Choice Book by the joint committee of the International Reading Association and the Children's Book Council. Both A Cat's Body and A Bird's Body were Junior Literary Guild selections. In 1991, she was awarded the Washington Post/Children's Book Guild Nonfiction award.
Judith Kinter is a freelance writer and poet. Her poetry has been included in a Random House anthology of Halloween poems. This is Ms. Kinter's first book for Clarion. She lives in Sacramento, California.Illustrator Dirk Zimmer was born in Goslar, Germany on October 2, 1943. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg. He worked as a painter during the German avant-garde movement and then went into filmmaking. In the late 1970s, he began working as an illustrator for numerous publications including Crawdaddy, the New York Times, and New York Magazine. He illustrated about 40 children's books between 1978 and 2008. He is best known for illustrating In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary… Stories by Alvin Schwartz, Bony-Legs by Joanna Cole, The One That Got Away by Percival Everett, and Seven Spiders Spinning by Gregory Maguire. He also wrote a book entitled Egon. He died on September 26, 2008 at the age of 64.