Mac Barnett, the 2025–2026 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, is a New York Times best-selling author of stories for children. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages and sold more than five million copies worldwide. Mac Barnett’s books have won many prizes, including two Caldecott Honors, three New York Times/ New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book Awards, three E. B. White Read-Aloud Awards, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Germany’s Jugendliteraturpreis, China’s Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature Award, the Netherlands’ Zilveren Griffel, and Italy’s Premio Orbil. He is the cocreator, with Jon Klassen, of the Substack Looking at Picture Books, as well as Shape Island, a stop-motion animated series on Apple TV+, based on their best-selling Shapes series of picture books. Mac Barnett lives in Oakland, California.

Jon Klassen is the creator of the #1 New York Times best-selling I Want My Hat Back, which won a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor, and its companions This Is Not My Hat, which won a Caldecott Medal and a Kate Greenaway Medal, and We Found a Hat. He is also the author-illustrator of The Rock from the Sky and The Skull, and the illustrator of Extra Yarn, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, and the Shapes Trilogy, all by Mac Barnett. Originally from Ontario, Jon Klassen now lives in Los Angeles.