MARJORIE WEINMAN SHARMAT has written more than 130 books for children and young adults, as well as movie and TV novelizations. Her books have been translated into twenty-four languages. The award-winning Nate the Great series, hailed in Booklist as "groundbreaking," was inspired by her father, Nathan Weinman. As a child in Portland, Maine, her first job was counting boxes at the real-life Weinman Brothers, a wholesale and manufacturing business owned by her father and uncle. MITCHELL SHARMAT, a graduate of Harvard University, has written numerous picture books, easy readers, and novels, and is a contributor to many textbook reading programs. He is best known for the classic Gregory, the Terrible Eater, a Reading Rainbow Feature Selection and a New York Times Critics' Pick. The idea for Nate the Great Talks Turkey came to him when he heard a radio news flash describing the predicament of a family trapped inside their car by an aggressive turkey in a supermarket parking lot. In Mitchell Sharmat's honor, The Sharmat Collection, displaying the books he's written, was established at the Harvard Graduate School of Education by the Munroe C. Gutman Library. JODY WHEELER developed a greater than average interest in children's books at an early age, having been influenced and encouraged by her great-aunt Opal Wheeler, a prolific writer of books for young readers in the 1950s. Since being trained as a fine artist and educator, Ms. Wheeler has enjoyed working on a variety of projects ranging from picture books to educational texts and magazines, and from greeting cards to coloring books. Jody Wheeler divides her time between Manhattan and Siesta Key, Florida.