Connie Collins Morgan grew up minutes away from the magical bayous of Lafayette Parish in Louisiana. Her deep passion for the power of the written word led her to a degree in elementary education from the University of Southwestern Louisiana and then to an MFA in children’s literature from Hollins University. She and her husband live in the mountains of West Virginia near their four children but far from her Cajun home. Her French heritage, however, remains always close at heart. Her first book with Pelican, The Runaway Beignet, was also a collaboration with illustrator Leonhard. Herb Leonhard received a BFA in illustration from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. His award-winning work has appeared in D Magazine, among other publications. He is the illustrator of several other Pelican books, including St. Patrick and the Three Brave Mice, Way Out West on My Little Pony, A Southern Child’s Garden of Verses, Leonardo’s Monster, I Know a Librarian Who Chewed on a Word, A Is for Alliguitar: Musical Alphabeasts, and Southern Mother Goose. Leonhard lives in Prosser, Washington.