Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and author of twenty-one books for children and educators, including Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, Surf’s Up, Booked, and a middle-grade novel in verse, The Crossover, which was awarded the 2015 Newbery Medal. He is currently the poet laureate of LitWorld, a K-6 literacy organization dedicated to supporting the development of literacy in the world's most vulnerable communities. He lives in Virginia. Ekua Holmes is a fine artist whose work explores themes of family, relationships, hope, and faith. The first children’s book she illustrated is Carole Boston Weatherford’s Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, which was a Caldecott Honor Book and a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book and for which she also won the John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award. Ekua Holmes lives in Boston.