Jean Craighead George was born on July 2, 1919 in Washington, D.C. She received degrees in English and science from Pennsylvania State University. She began her career as a reporter for the International News Service. In the 1940s she was a member of the White House press corps for The Washington Post. During her lifetime, she wrote over 100 novels including My Side of the Mountain, which was a 1960 Newbery Honor Book, On the Far Side of the Mountain, Julie of the Wolves, which won the Newbery Medal, Julie, and Julie's Wolf Pack. She also wrote two guides to cooking with wild foods and an autobiography entitled Journey Inward. In 1991, she became the first winner of the School Library Media… Section of the New York Library Association's Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature. She died on May 15, 2012 at the age of 92.
John Schoenherr was born in New York City on July 5, 1935. He received a B.F.A. from the Pratt Institute in 1956. During his lifetime, he illustrated numerous books for children and adults including The Wolfling and Rascal by Sterling North, Gentle Ben by Walt Morey, The Fox and the Hound by Daniel P. Mannix, Incident at Hawk's Hill by Allan W. Eckert, Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, and The Illustrated Dune by Frank Herbert. He won a Caldecott Medal in 1988 for Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and a Hugo award in 1965 for his science fiction artwork. He died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on April 8, 2010 at the age of 74.