NANCY WILLARD is an award-winning children's author, poet and essayist who received the Newbery Medal in 1982 for A Visit to William Blake's Inn. She has written dozens of volumes of children's fiction and poetry and she is also the author of two novels for adults and twelve books of poetry. She lives with her husband, photographer Eric Lindbloom and teaches at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. JERRY PINKNEY is one of children's literature's most time-honored artists. He has been illustrating children's books for over forty years and has more than seventy-five books to his credit. He has the rare distinction of being the recipient of five Caldecott Honor books and the Caldecott Medal winner for The Lion and the Mouse. He has also won the Coretta Scott King Award five times, the Coretta Scott King Honor four times and was nominated for the prestigious international Hans Christian Anderson Award. He lives with his wife, author Gloria Jean Pinkney, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.