ELEANOR FARJEON (1881–1965) grew up in England in a house filled with books, and she and her brothers enjoyed reading stories to one another and writing their own. In America, Farjeon’s best-known work may be the hymn “Morning Has Broken,” later recorded by Cat Stevens, but in her native country she is beloved as the author of Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep and Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard. Farjeon was pleased when her story collection, The Little Bookroom, won the prestigious Carnegie Medal, but she turned down another honor—Dame of the British Empire—explaining that she “did not wish to become different from the milk-man.” At her death, the Children’s Book Circle established the Eleanor Farjeon Award in her honor.

EDWARD ARDIZZONE (1900–1979) was born in French Indochina (now Vietnam) and moved to England when he was five years old. In addition to his illustrations for works by Eleanor Farjeon, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Louis Stevenson, Ardizzone wrote and illustrated his own books, including the celebrated Little Tim series, which was inspired in part by his dreams of escape from boarding school.