Francisco Jiménez emigrated from Tlaquepaque, Mexico, to California, where he worked for many years in the fields with his family. He received both his master’s degree and his Ph.D. from Columbia University and is now the chairman of the Modern Languages and Literature Department at Santa Clara University, the setting of much of his newest novel, Reaching Out. He is the Pura Belpre Honor winning author of The Circuit, Breaking Through, and La Mariposa. He is also the recipient of the John Steinbeck Award. He lives with his family in Santa Clara, California. Celia Jacobs is a Portland-born illustrator who has lived in Los Angeles and New York City. Her interests include nature, music, and social issues, all of which she illustrates with sensitivity and California technicolor. She works for various brands and publications, once from an oceanographic research vessel and once from a lab in Bermuda, but mostly from the home studio she shares with a black-and-white dog named Archie.