Bette Bao Lord, Bette Bao Lord was born in Shanghai and came to the United States when she was eight years old. Her father, a British trained engineer, was sent to the U.S. in 1946 by the Chinese government to purchase equipment. The family was stranded, in 1947, when Mao Zedong and the communist rebels won the civil war in China. Lord received an M.A. from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and graduated with her B.A. from Tufts University. She married Winston Lord, former Ambassador to China and high Ranking State Department official. Lord's first novel, "Spring Moon" (1981), which is set in pre-revolutionary China, was an international bestseller and an American Book Award nominee for… best first novel. She has also written about her painful childhood experiences, as a Chinese immigrant in the United States post World War II, in the autobiographical children's book "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson." The book tells how she struggled to learn English and be accepted by her classmates. "The Middle Heart" spans 70 years of modern Chinese history, ending with the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989. She has also written articles for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times, and USA Today. She has also co-produced The People's Art Theatre's Beijing production of The Caine Mutiny, directed by Charlton Heston. Ms. Lord has received the honor of an appointment by President Clinton to the International Broadcasting Board of Governors to oversee all U.S. non-military international broadcasting. She is also the chairperson the Freedom House, which promotes democratic institutions around the world. President Clinton said of Ms. Lord at one of the organizations conferences, "I'm honored to be introduced by someone who writes so powerfully about the past and is working so effectively to shape the future." She has sat on the Board of Trustees of The Freedom Forum, The Kennedy Center Community and Friends, and The National Portrait Gallery. She serves on the Advisory Council on Foreign Relations, Author's Guild, PEN, and the Organization of Chinese Americans. Some of the awards Ms. Lord has received include honorary doctorates from seven universities, the U.S. International Agency Award for Outstanding Contributions, The Women of Honor Award from the National Council of Women, the New York Public Library's Literary Lion, the American Women for International Understanding Award, the Qingyun Award from the China Institute, the Distinguished American Award, and the Woman of the Year Award from Chinatown Planning Council.
Marc Simont was born in 1915 in Paris. His parents were from the Catalonia region of Spain, and his childhood was spent in France, Spain, and the United States. Encouraged by his father, Joseph Simont, an artist and staff illustrator for the magazine L'Illustration, Simont drew from a young age. He eventually attended art school in Paris, at the Acadmie Julian, Acadmie Ranson, and the Andr Lhote School, and in New York, at the New York National Academy of Design. He also spent three years in the army. When he was nineteen, Simont settled in America permanently, determined to support himself as an artist. His first illustrations for a children's book appeared in 1939. Since then, Simont has… illustrated nearly a hundred books. He won a Caldecott Honor in 1950 for illustrating Ruth Krauss's The Happy Day, and in in 1957 he was awarded the Caldecott Medal for his pictures in A Tree is Nice, by Janice May Udry. Simont's art is in collections as far afield at the Kijo Picture Book Museum in Japan. His most prized acknowledgement is having been chosen as the 1997 Illustrator of the Year in his native Catalonia by the Professional Association of Illustrators. Simont's book, The Stray Dog, won the Caldecott Medal in 2002.