Kathy East, Assistant Director and Head of Youth Services, Wood County District Public Library, Bowling Green, Ohio, is active in professional organizations regionally, nationally, and internationally. A former president of ALSC and former chair of the Caldecott Committee, East has represented ALA at IFLA in the Section on Children and Young Adults.

Rebecca L. Thomas is an elementary school librarian, Shaker Heights City Schools, Ohio. She has served on the Caldecott Committee and Penguin Putnam Award Committee for ALA. She is also an adjunct professor at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, where she teaches a graduate-level course in children's and YA literature, and a recipient of the Mary Karrer Award from Ohio State University's College of Education. She is the author of numerous reference books, including the Popular Series Fiction set for Libraries Unlimited (2004) and Connecting Cultures (Bowker, 1996).