Lillian Hoban was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 18, 1925. She attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, studied dance with Martha Graham, and taught modern dance in New York and Connecticut. She also danced professionally in the 1950's. During her lifetime, she illustrated or wrote more than 100 children's books. Her first publication was a book she illustrated, Herman the Loser, written by her husband Russell Hoban, and published in 1961. She illustrated several of his books including London Men and English Men, Charlie the Tramp, Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas, and books about a badger named Frances such as A Baby Sister for Frances. After the couple divorced in 1975,… she began writing and illustrating I-Can- Read-Books including Joe and Betsy the Dinosaur, Silly Tilly's Thanksgiving, and a series about Arthur the Chimpanzee and his little sister Violet. She died from heart failure on July 17, 1998 at the age of 73.
Alvin Schwartz was born April 25, 1927.Schwartz began his career as a journalist, but, after the publication of his bestselling book A Twister of Twists, a Tangler of Tongues, he devoted himself to becoming a collector and arranger of folk wisdom, rhyme, and silliness. Schwartz is known for a body of work of more than two dozen books of folklore for young readers that explore everything from wordplay and humor to tales and legends of all kinds.
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.
Michele Sobel Spirn has written more than seventy books, videos, and filmstrips for children, as well as several award-winning films for adults. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.