Elly Berke has always loved children's literature and the power of asking good questions. Her earliest influence was Barbara Cooney, whom she met in 1991 at a book signing in Damariscotta, Maine. The characters in this story are inspired by people she has met on her professional journey through public education: leading programs at New York City's Tenement Museum, teaching ESL in bilingual schools, and studying Arts in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Outside of writing and teaching, she is a professional actor involved in many projects around her local Somerville, Massechusetts, and virtually through her home voice-over studio.
Luciana Navarro Powell's coming-here story started in 2002, when she moved to the United States. She loves asking people what their own coming- here stories are whenever she's asked where she's from. Powell has created art since childhood and became a full-time illustrator in 2001. She moved from watercolor and acrylic paints to the digital brush, loving the freedom and the possibilities of experimentation with textures, and then to mixed media, incorporating photographs and scanned objects with traditional techniques in a digital melting pot. The colors, vibrancy, and warmth of her native Brazil infuse her work with a sunny optimism, humor, and warm human-animal-landscape interactions. As an immigrant, she likes to make sure that kids can see themselves in her art.
