Jacqueline Woodson (JacquelineWoodson.com) received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the Children's Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2022 Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence, and was the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming , won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, and an NAACP Image Award. Her dozens of books for young readers include Coretta Scott King Award and NAACP Image Award winner Before the Ever After , New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me , Newbery Honor winners Feathers , Show Way , and After Tupac and D Foster , and the picture book Each Kindness , which won the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York. Monica Mikai (MonicaMikai.com) wrote and illustrated What the Garden Tells Me , Wash Day with Mama , and My Quiet Place .

She has illustrated numerous picture books, including Build a House (by Rhiannon Giddens), My Name Is a Story (by Ashanti), You Are Getting Sleepy (by Lori Alexander), The Proudest Color (by Sheila Modir and Jeffrey Kashou), and Thank a Farmer (by Maria Gianferrari). She has a BA in art and elementary education from Rider University and an MFA in painting from the New York Studio School. Monica lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with her husband and two sons.