James Ransome, recipient of the 2023 Children's Literature Legacy Award, is the illustrator of many award-winning picture books, including Sonny Rollins Plays the Bridge (by Gary Golio), The Creation (by James Weldon Johnson), which won a Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration, and Let My People Go (by Patricia McKissack), winner of an NAACP Image Award. His other books include This Is the Rope (by Jacqueline Woodson), Young Pele (by Lesa Cline-Ransome), and Sky Boys (by Deborah Hopkinson). He lives in upstate New York with his wife, author Lesa Cline-Ransome, and their family.