MARGERY WILLIAMS was born in London in 1881 and first came to the United States at the age of nine. For the rest of her life, she lived alternately in England and America. Her first novel was published when she was twenty-one, but she turned to writing for children in 1922 with the publication by Doubleday of The Velveteen Rabbit, the first and best-known of her thirty books for young people. Toward the end of her life, she lived in Greenwich Village, New York. She died there in 1944.

ERIN STEAD is the illustrator of the Caldecott Medal-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee and its sequel, Amos McGee Misses the Bus, and the New York Times bestseller The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine. Her other acclaimed picture books include: Tony; And Then It's Spring; Bear Has a Story to Tell; Lenny & Lucy; If You Want to See a Whale; The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles; and Music for Mr. Moon. She lives in Michigan with her husband, author/illustrator Philip Stead. Visit Erin online at erinstead.com.