A visual artist, musician, and psychotherapist, Gary Golio is the author of the New York Times-bestselling picture book Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow, which received the 2011 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. His other books, most of which profile important artists, include When Bob Met Woody, Strange Fruit, Sonny Rollins Plays the Bridge, Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem, The Soldier's Friend, and Silence Sounds Simple.

The recipient of a Caldecott Honor and a five-time Coretta Scott King award-winner, E. B. Lewis is the illustrator of more than seventy books for children. His recent titles include Everywhere Beauty is Harlem: The Vision of Photographer Roy DeCarava by Gary Golio, which received four starred reviews and was a Kirkus Most Anticipated Book of 2024, and The Soldier's Friend: Walt Whitman's Extraordinary Service in the American Civil War also by Gary Golio. He is best known for illustrating Preaching to the Chickens by Jabari Asim, a 2016 New York Times Best Illustrated Book, and Coming on Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson, for which he won a 2005 Caldecott Honor Award.