Author Nancy Krulik graduated from Temple University. Before becoming a free-lance author, she was the editor of Scholastic's Hot Dog and Thrills and Chills magazines. She has written over 200 books for children and young adults including biographies of Hollywood's hottest young stars and teen and preteen advice books. She is best known for writing the Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo series and the How I Survived Middle School series.
Terry Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, Wales on February 1, 1942. He was a writer for such BBC programs as The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set, before joining with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin to form the Monty Python comedy troupe. Best remembered as the nude organist, Jones co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), and directed Life of Brian (1979) and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983). Along with many Python-related books, screenplays, and records, he has written several non-fiction works including Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary, Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery, and Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror. He also wrote numerous children's books including The Saga of Erik the Viking, which won the Children's Book Award in 1984, Fantastic Stories, The Beast with a Thousand Teeth, The Curse of the Vampire Socks, and Bedtime Stories.
Kenneth Grahame was born in Edinburgh on March 3, 1859. When he was five years old, his mother died of scarlet fever and he nearly died himself, of the same disease. His father became an alcoholic and sent the children to Berkshire to live with relatives. They were later reunited with their father, but after a failed year, the children never heard from him again. Sometime later, one of his brothers died at the age of fifteen. He attended St. Edward's School as a child and intended to go on to Oxford University, but his relatives wanted him to go into banking. He worked in his uncle's office, in Westminster, for two years then went to work at the Bank of England as a clerk in 1879. He spent nearly thirty years there and became the Secretary of the Bank at the age of thirty-nine. He retired from the bank right before The Wind in the Willows was published in 1908. He wrote essays on topics that included smoking, walking and idleness. Many of the essays were published as the book Pagan Papers (1893) and the five orphan characters featured in the papers were developed into the books The Golden Age (1895) and Dream Days (1898). The Wind in the Willows (1908) was based on bedtime stories and letters to his son and it is where the characters Rat, Badger, Mole and Toad were created. In 1930, Milne's stage version was brought to another audience in Toad of Toad Hall. Grahame died on July 6, 1932.
