Katherine Paterson was born in Qing Jiang, Jiangsu, China in 1932. She attended King College in Bristol, Tennessee and then graduate school in Virginia where she studied Bible and Christian education. Before going to graduate school, she was a teacher for one year and after graduate school, she moved to Japan to be a missionary. Her first book, Sign of the Chrysanthemum was published in 1991. Other titles to follow included The Bridge to Terabithia and Jacod Have I Loved which both won her a Newbery Award, The Great Gilly Hopkins, Lyddie and The Master Puppeteer. In addition to the Newbery Award, she is the recipient of numerous others including the Scott O'Dell Award, the National Book… Award for Children's Literature, the American Book Award, the American Library Association's Best Books for Young Adults Award and the New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year Award. She was also honored with the Hans Christian Anderson Award.
John Rocco grew up Barrington, Rhode Island. He studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design and School of Visual Arts in New York City. John collaborated with actor/comedian Whoopi Goldberg on the picture book Alice. Shortly after the project was finished he moved to Los Angeles where he worked as a creative director. At Walt Disney Imagineering John designed many attractions at Disney's Epcot, including the Post-Shows for Spaceship Earth and Mission Space. He also served as the art director for DisneyQuest, an interactive theme park in Downtown Disney. At Dreamworks, John was the pre-production art director for animated film Shrek. In 2005 John shifted his focus to writing… and illustrating children's books and created Wolf! Wolf! which netted him the Borders Original Voices Award for best picture book. His next book was Moonpowder (May 2008) followed by Fu Finds the Way (Oct 2009). John continues to collaborate with authors and has illustrated Boy, Were We Wrong About the Solar System (Sep 2008) for Kathleen V. Kudlinski and The Lightening Thief (Dec 2009) for Rick Riodan. He also illustrates all the covers for Rick Riordan's bestselling YA series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians. John lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.