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 and the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award. Margarita's books have also received three Pura Belpre Awards and four Americas Awards, as well as a Jane Addams Award, International Reading Association Award, Claudia Lewis Poetry 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. Raul Colon 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. In 1978 Colon made Florida his home, working at an educational television center designing everything from puppets to short animated films. In 1988 the artist settled with his family in New City, New York, and began a freelance career. Today, Colon continues to be a versatile and acclaimed illustrator whose work has appeared in important national publications. An award-winning illustrator of over thirty books for children, Colon has received a Golden Kite Award, a Pura Belpre Award, and both a gold and silver medal in The Original Art show.