Kekla Magoon is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Secret Library and many other fiction and nonfiction titles for young readers, including X: A Novel, cowritten with Ilyasah Shabazz; the Blue Stars series, cowritten with Cynthia Leitich Smith and illustrated by Molly Murakami; and Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People. She has received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, an NAACP Image Award, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and four Coretta Scott King Honors, among others. Kekla Magoon lives in Montpelier, Vermont, and teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts.