Dr. Tim Tyson, named one of Georgia's High Performance Principals by State Governor Sonny Perdue, served as the principal of Mabry Middle School in Cobb County, Georgia. The School Library Journal has referred to Dr. Tyson as the "Pied Piper of Educational Technology," and his innovative use of technology to maximize student achievement has been featured in a variety of national education magazines.

Dr. Tyson began the school's annual, student-led, digital film festival which has received attention from the Lucas Foundation, Georgia Public Broadcasting, and internationally renowned education reformers. MabryOnline.org, a collection of over 100 blogs which served as the school web presence through June of 2007, features his former students', teachers', and administrators' digital media creations.

Dr. Tyson believes that technology is neither "the answer nor the magic bullet" but a tool that, when appropriately leveraged, brings people together so that they can collaboratively create and share with unprecedented ease and facility.

Melissa Sweet has illustrated over 70 children’s books from board books to nonfiction and jacket covers. Her collages and paintings have appeared in many publications including the New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, on greeting cards, cookbooks and posters.   Her toys for eeBoo have won the Oppenheim and Parents Choice Awards. She has written and illustrated two books, Tupelo Rides the Rails, and Carmine: A Little More Red, a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books, 2005.

Melissa illustrated A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williiams by Jen Bryant, a 2009 Caldecott Honor book and NCTE Notable Children’s Book. Other titles include The Sleepy Little Alphabet by Judy Sierra and Day is Done by Peter Yarrow. When she is not in her studio, she can be found taking in an art class, hiking with her dogs or riding her bicycle. She lives with her family in Rockport, Maine.

Patrick Carman is the award-winning author of many books for young adults and children. He grew up in Salem, Oregon, and graduated from Willamette University. He has worked in advertising, game design, and technology.

Patrick Carman has been a life long writer and storyteller. He writs books for young adults and children for Scholastic and Little Brown Books for Young Readers. His beststelling series include The Land of Elyon, Atherton, and Elliot’s Park. Mr. Carman’s books have been translated into approximately two dozen languages.

Mr. Carman spends his free time supporting literacy campaigns and community organizations, working with Agros.org, mountain biking, fly fishing, doing crosswords, playing Scrabble and basketball, reading, and (more than anything else) spending time with his wife and two daughters.

David J. Smith is a classroom teacher with over 25 years experience teaching middle and high school English, geography and social studies. He achieved national recognition for his unique method of teaching seventh graders to draw maps of the entire world from memory, now published as a highly successful curriculum, “Mapping the World by Heart.” In 1992, Smith won the U.S. Department of Education's “A+ for Breaking the Mold” Award for his work.

Through his work with teachers, Smith developed the idea of creating a realistic picture of the world that would be understandable and accessible to young people. By imagining a village where each inhabitant represented 62 million individuals, David was able to pare Earth's population down to a village of 100 people. The result is If the World Were a Village: A Book about the World's People.

Smith believes that this book promotes “world-mindedness,” which is an attitude, an approach to life. At a time when parents and educators are looking to help children gain a better understanding of the world's peoples and their ways of life, If the World Were a Village is a unique and objective resource. Through the surprising statistics and Smith's tips on fostering a world view, children are encouraged to embrace the bigger picture and to establish their own place in the global village.

Denise Fleming was born in Toledo, Ohio.

When she was a child, she spent most of her time playing outdoors, making things, or reading.

In high school she took lots of art classes and won several art awards. After high school she went to Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In 1991 IN THE TALL, TALL GRASS was published by Henry Holt and Company. It was written in terse verse and illustrated with pulp paintings. The companion book, IN THE SMALL, SMALL POND, was published in 1994 and was a Caldecott Honor Book.

Katie Van Sluys is an educator whose experiences include working as a teacher in elementary, bilingual, international, and college level settings. Currently Katie works as an associate professor at DePaul University in Chicago specializing in literacy. She has co-developed and facilitated summer writing institutes, worked with diverse districts as a writing & literacy consultant, and has sustained working relationships with schools, teachers, and administrators through teacher research, study groups, workshops, and collaborative writing. Her areas of greatest interest include critical literacies, writing pedagogy, and multilingual learners. Her book What if and why?: Literacy invitations in Multilingual Classrooms (Heinemann, 2005) invites children and teacher to learn language through critical engagements connected with students’ lives and experiences.