Wenjun Qin was born in Shanghai in 1954. She expresses her conviction that all children are worthy of being portrayed in her famous quote, "Each and every child is an irreplaceable miracle." The beauty and innocence she depicts in her works are impossible for children themselves to put into literature and too often forgotten by adults. She has served as the President of the China-Japan Children's Literature and Fine Arts Exchange Association, promoting awareness of children's literature and fine arts beteen the two countries. In 2008, in Shanghai, she founded the Shanghai Board on Books for Young People (SHBBY), a branch of CBBY whose members include over a hundred writers and illustrators from that city. Born in China, Rong Yu firt trained as a primary school teacher, and then studied for a BA in Chinese Painting and Contemporary Art Design (Nanjing Normal University's Art College) and an MA in Communication and Design (Royal College of Art, London). She now lives near Cambridge in the United Kingdom.