Cheryl Bardoe is the author of two Orbis Pictus Honor books, Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age (Abrams, 2010) and Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas (Abrams, 2006), as well as The Ugly Duckling Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Tale (Abrams, 2011). She lives near Hartford, Connecticut, with her family.

Alan Marks began his career illustrating for magazines and newspapers in England. His first children's book Storm, written by Kevin Crossley Holland, won the Carnegie Medal. Alan now illustrates a wide variety of subjects, from nursery rhymes to war poetry. He is the illustrator of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book A Mother’s JourneyBehold the Beautiful Dung BeetlePlanet ZooThe Spirit of the ForestLittle Lost Bat, and more. Alan lives in an old house in the Kent countryside with his wife and two daughters.