Margarita Engle is the Cuban American author of many verse books, including a Newbery Honor winner, The Surrender Tree; a PEN USA Award winner, The Lightning Dreamer; and a verse memoir, Enchanted Air, winner of many awards, including an inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award Honor. Margarita's books have also received three Pura Belpre_x0301_ Awards and four Ame_x0301_ricas Awards, as well as a Jane Addams Award, International Reading Association Award, and the Charlotte Zolotow Award. In 2017, the Poetry Foundation named her the Young People's Poet Laureate. Margarita grew up in Los Angeles but developed a deep attachment to her mother's homeland during summers with her extended family in Cuba. She was trained as a botanist and agronomist before becoming a full-time poet and novelist. Rau_x0301_l Colo_x0301_n was born in New York City in December of 1952 and moved with his parents in the 1960s to Caguas, Puerto Rico, where he studied commercial art. Colo_x0301_n is a versatile and acclaimed illustrator whose work has appeared in important national publications. An award-winning illustrator of over thirty books for children, Colo_x0301_n has received a Golden Kite Award, a Pura Belpre_x0301_ Award, and both a gold and silver medal in The Original Art show.

He lives in New City, New York.