Marilyn Helmer is the author of many books for children, including One Splendid Tree and Funtime Riddles. She lives in Burlington, Ontario.

Pamela was born and raised in Mississauga, Ontario. She holds an Honors Bachelor of Environmental Studies and Biology from the University of Waterloo. During university, Pamela had several interesting summer jobs, including working for the mosquito control program with Alberta Environment in Edmonton. She spent every day dressed in chest waders, standing in marshes and studying the insect life that thrived there. She started her writing career as the education co-ordinator for the Federation of Ontario Naturalists. This role involved writing education kits about nature and the environment that were used by teachers in classrooms. Since going freelance in 1990, she has published over 35 nature books for children. In 1992, Pamela, her husband and their three daughters moved to Canning, Nova Scotia. Pamela now has four young grandchildren to further inspire her.#Through her books, Pamela tries to capture her readers’ interest in nature by finding the truly weird and wonderful aspects of plants and animals. She is very enthusiastic about the amazing creatures out there and hopes that enthusiasm comes through in her writing. Pamela is a big believer that creativity is an important part of writing nonfiction. It’s what you do with the facts that counts! Many of her books also focus on hands-on activities that involve the reader in nature discovery. Nurturing respect and fascination for nature and conservation are her ultimate goals.

Linda Bailey sometimes feels as though she has multiple personalities. That’s because when she’s writing a story, she feels as though she’s actually inside the character. So for five books, she was “inside” an exuberant dog named Stanley — who hosted a party, went off to sea and rode a mean skateboard, among other high jinks. She has also gone time traveling (Good Times Travel Agency series) and gotten to the bottom of some truly dastardly crimes (Stevie Diamond Mystery series). In Toads on Toast, she cooked up a surprising (and toad-less) breakfast dish, and, most recently, she got to relive her childhood fantasies as she wrote If Kids Ruled the World.#Fortunately, this multiple-personality thing seems to be working! Linda’s books have been honored with multiple awards, including the Silver Birch, the Blue Spruce, the Georgia Picture Storybook Award, the California Young Reader Medal, the Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize (BC Book Prize) and the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada. #A prairie girl by birth (Winnipeg, Manitoba), Linda is now a longtime West Coaster who likes to live within walking distance of the sea. She has two lovely grown daughters and makes her home in Vancouver, British Columbia.