Jo van Dam was born in England and moved to New Zealand when she was 11 years old. Her family always had cats and dogs, which inspired her to write Doggy Ditties. Jo lives in central Auckland with her husband, two nearly adult children and two large black cats (no dogs at the moment). Jo is the librarian at two primary schools and she says that sharing her passion and enthusiasm for books and words is the best job in the world. Myles Lawford has been making art since he was a child, and graduated from AUT with a bachelor of Spatial Design. For the past 15 years Myles has worked for design agencies using his illustration skills to bring concepts to life and creating animated cartoons for TV shows, advertisements and games. Recently Myles has been involved in children's sporting education programmes and last year he illustrated Scholastic NZ's The Twelve Days of Kiwi Christmas.