Toni Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio on February 18, 1931. She received a B.A. in English from Howard University in 1953 and a master's degree in English from Cornell University in 1955 with her thesis on the theme of suicide in modern literature. She taught at several universities including Texas Southern University, Howard University, and Princeton University. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. Her other works include Sula, Tar Baby, Jazz, Paradise, Love, A Mercy, and Home. She has won several awards including the National Book Critics Circle Award for 1977 for Song of Solomon, the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1987, the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. She also co-wrote children's books with her younger son, Slade Morrison, including The Big Box, The Book of Mean People, and Peeny Butter Fudge. Slade Morrison was born in Ohio and educated in New York City. He studied art at SUNY Purchase and maintains a studio in Rockland County where he lives. He has collaborated with his mother on three previous books for children. Giselle Potter is the author and illustrator of "The Year I Didn't Go to School, " which is based upon her travels around Italy with her family's theater troupe at age seven. She is also the illustrator of "The Brave Little Seamstress" and "Kate and the Beanstalk, " both by Mary Pope Osborne, "The Honest-to-Goodness Truth" by Patricia C. McKissack, and "Gabriella's Song" by Candace Fleming. Ms. Potter lives in Rosendale, New York.