Sally Nicholls was born in Stockton-on-Tees, just after midnight, in a thunderstorm. She spent most of her childhood trying to make real life as much like a book as possible.

Her first book, Ways to Live Forever, won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in 2008 and in 2015 her book An Island of Our Own was shortlisted for the Costa children's prize. Sally lives in a little house in Oxford, writing stories and trying to believe her luck.

Brett Helquist's celebrated art has graced books from the charming Bedtime for Bear, which he also wrote, to the New York Times—bestselling A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket to the glorious picture book adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.