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.

Shawn Harris is an artist and musician who began his career by doing record and poster art for his band, the Matches, in 2003. Since then he has created art for musicians such as Adele, Snoop Dogg, and 311. His first picture book, Her Right Foot, was written by Dave Eggers. Have You Ever Seen a Flower?, a picture book written and illustrated by Shawn Harris, was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 2022. Shawn Harris lives in Morongo Valley, California.