Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of many books for children, including the novel One Big Open Sky, which was a Newbery Honor Book and a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book, as well as the novel Finding Langston, which was a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book and winner of a Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and the picture book Before She Was Harriet, illustrated by James E. Ransome, which was a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book, a Christopher Award winner, and a Jane Addams Honor Book. Lesa Cline-Ransome lives with her husband, illustrator James E. Ransome, in the Hudson Valley region of New York.

James E. Ransome, the 2023 winner of the Children's Literature Legacy Award, is the illustrator of numerous books for children, including Granddaddy's Turn and Northbound, both by Michael S. Bandy and Eric Stein, as well as The Creation, written by James Weldon Johnson, for which he won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. James E. Ransome lives with his wife, Lesa Cline-Ransome, in the Hudson Valley region of New York.