Author and Illustrator Rashin Kheiriyeh is an award-winning artist, author, and animation director who has illustrated over eighty children's books internationally, including Saffron Ice Cream, which she also wrote. She won the Sendak Fellowship Award in 2017 and the Bologna Book Fair Ragazzi Award in 2009. Rashin was born in Khorramshahr, Iran, in 1979. The beauty of Persian rugs and her interest in astrology inspired her to write and illustrate Bahar, the Lucky.