Marcia Thornton Jones is the author of more than 125 books including RATFINK, CHAMP, GODZILLA ATE MY HOMEWORK LEPRECHAUN ON THE LOOSE, and THE TALE OF JACK FROST. She is the co-author of the writing guide, STORY SPARKERS, and seven best-selling children's series including "Keyholders", "The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids", "Bailey City Monsters", "The Bailey School Kids Junior Chapter Books", "Ghostville Elementary", "Trplet Trouble", and "The Barkley School for Dogs." Her books have been honored and recognized by The Children's Top 100 Books, Children's Choice Award List, Publisher's Weekly Bestsellers list, The Elementary Library Book Award (ELBA), the Humane Society KIND Honor Book list. She is a proud recipient of the Milner Award and is listed as a top 100 author by the Educational Paperback Association.

Besides writing, Marcia enjoys presenting at schools and conferences. As a veteran teacher with 25 years of experience, she easily relates the importance of writing and reading to students of all ages.

Marcia was born in Joliet, IL but has spent most of her life in Lexington, KY. She currently lives in Lexington with her husband, Stephen, and their two cats. To find out more about Marcia, visit her web site at www.marciatjones.com.

DEBBIE DADEY taught first grade before becoming a librarian. It was while teaching that she first realized how much she wanted to write a book for reluctant readers. Her first book, Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots, with fellow teacher Marcia Thornton Jones, was the result of a very bad day. In fact, Marcia and Debbie joked that if they were vampire teachers all the kids would pay attention to them! Since then, Debbie and Marcia have collaborated on more than 125 books with sales of over forty-seven million copies. Debbie has traditionally published 180 books and is enjoying writing the Mermaid Tales series for Simon and Schuster. She has had a great time channeling her inner girl (and inner mermaid) with the adventures of Shelly, Echo, Kiki and Pearl. In each book, the mergirls deal with kid issues, as well as learning things about the ocean in school. Marcia and Debbie's newest adventure is with the Bailey School Kids graphic novels, adapted by Pearl Low. Debbie grew up in Kentucky, but has lived all over the country with her family. She currently lives in Tennessee with her husband and two dogs. She loves it when her children visit and enjoys visiting schools all over the world. She hopes you'll like her on Facebook.com/debbiedadey. follow her on Twitter.com/debbiedadey or visit www.debbiedadey.com.

John Steven Gurney is the author and illustrator of picture books Dinosaur Train and The Bossy Pirate, and the graphic novels Fuzzy Baseball, and Ninja Baseball Blast (Fuzzy Baseball 2). Dinosaur Train was inspired by his young son Jesse's obsession with both trains and dinosaurs. It depicts a child's fanciful journey on an oversized train operated by colorful dinos. The Bossy Pirate is about a boy learning not to be too controlling while playing imaginatively with his friends.

In John's graphic novel Fuzzy Baseball, he combines his love of creating funny animals with his love of baseball. In Ninja Baseball Blast the Fuzzies have a wacky away game against the Sashimi City Ninjas.

John has illustrated over 150 books for children. He is the illustrator of some of America's most popular chapter books series. Among these are Random House's The A to Z Mysteries and Scholastic's The Bailey School Kids, and Big Apple Barn. His latest series is The Calendar Mysteries, an offshoot of The A to Z Mysteries, featuring the younger siblings of Josh and Ruth Rose.

John grew up in Bucks County Pennsylvania. His first and greatest inspirations were Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak. As he approached fifth grade his influences switched to Bugs Bunny cartoons and Mad Magazine. He studied art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY for his undergraduate degree, and received an MFA in Illustration from The University of Hartford. He lived in NYC until 1997, when he moved to Brattleboro, Vermont where he currently lives with his wife. When he is not writing and illustrating he travels around the country sharing his creative process with school children. Since 2002 he has traveled to schools in 31 countries and 6 countries to share his author presentation.