Before becoming a writer, PATRICIA HRUBY POWELL danced throughout Europe and the Americas, performed as an aerial dancer, worked in lithography and as a librarian and as a storyteller. Her previous book, Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker, won a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor for Nonfiction, a Parents’ Choice Gold Award for Poetry, and earned five starred reviews. You can visit Patricia online at Talesforallages.com.

SHADRA STRICKLAND studied design, writ-ing, and illustration at Syracuse University and later went on to complete her MFA at the School of Visual Arts Illustration as Visual Essay program in New York City. She has received the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award, the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent, and the NAACP Image Award. You can visit her online at Shadrastrickland.com.