Rudyard Kipling was born in India in 1865. After intermittently moving between India and England during his early life, he settled in the latter in 1889, published his novel The Light That Failed in 1891 and married Caroline (Carrie) Balestier the following year.

They returned to her home in Brattleboro, Vermont, where Kipling wrote the two Jungle Books and Captains Courageous.

He continued to write prolifically and was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 but his later years were darkened by the death of his son John at the Battle of Loos in 1915. He died in 1936.

Galia Bernstein was born and raised in Israel. She worked as the art director of two Israeli children's magazines before moving to New York City to study illustration at the Parsons School of Design. Galia currently works as a freelance illustrator and is the author-illustrator of Leyla and I Am a Cat, which received three starred reviews. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.