Born in Taiwan, celebrated children's author Jean Little (1932-2020) grew up in Ontario and graduated from the University of Toronto with an honors degree in English. A Member of the Order of Canada, Little received six honorary degrees and was awarded the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages and have won numerous awards, including a Canada Council Children's Literature Award (now known as the Governor General's Literary Award); a CLA Book of the Year; the Little, Brown Children's Book Award; the Vicky Metcalf Award and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award honor book.
Joe Weissmann was born in Austria and came to Canada at the age of eleven.
He studied art at the Museum of Fine Arts and Concordia University in Montreal and taught illustration at Sheridan College for six years. An award-winning illustrator, Joe works for book and magazine publishers in Canada and the United States and lives in rural Ontario with his wife and his old cat, Alfie.