Margery Williams, an English-American author who lived in Pennsylvania, achieved fame at age forty-one with the 1922 publication of The Velveteen Rabbit, an instant classic. She wrote a number of other books, including Winterbound, a runner-up for the 1937 Newbery Medal. Married with two children, she died in 1944 at the age of sixty-three. Gennady Spirin grew up in a small town near Moscow and attended the Moscow Art School at the Academy of Art and at the Moscow Stroganov Institute. He has received five gold medals from the Society of Illustrators in New York City, the Golden Apple from the Bratislava International Biennial, and first prize at both the Bologna and Barcelona international book fairs. His work has appeared four times on the annual New York Times Ten Best Illustrated Books of the Year list. Mr. Spirin has illustrated many classic poems, songs, Bible stories, and tales, including The Night Before Christmas, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Jesus, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Little Red Riding Hood. Now a U.S. citizen, he lives with his wife and three sons in Princeton, New Jersey.