Helen O'Dare has been reading children's books ever since she was a child and has followed that passion into bookselling and publishing. She loves to roller skate, share stories with her little people and still dreams of being tall enough to join the Rockettes.

When Nicola O'Byrnewas five years old her parents banned Saturday morning television, and she has been drawing ever since. Nicola grew up in Singapore surrounded by the vibrant colors of the tropics and had not even heard of illustration as a career before she discovered the Illustration course at Edinburgh College of Art. Having graduated from ECA, Nicola has now completed a Masters in Printmaking from Camberwell College of Art, as well as pursuing a career in children's book illustration. She gets most of her ideas for children's books when she should be working on something else, and bases all of her characters on people she knows.