Sean Qualls finds inspiration everywhere, from old buildings, nature, fairy tales, black memorabilia, and outsider art to cave paintings, African imagery, mythology, music, and his native Brooklyn. He is the co-illustrator, with his wife, Selina Alko, of the celebrated picture books Two Friends by Dean Robbins and The Case for Loving by Selina Alko. Other acclaimed picture books he has illustrated include Giant Steps to Change the World by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee, Little Cloud and Lady Wind by Toni Morrison and her son Slade, Dizzy by Jonah Winter, and Before John Was a Jazz Giant by Carole Boston Weatherford, for which he received a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his family. Visit him online at seanqualls.com.
Selina Alko has always been curious about different people and cultures, which stems, in part, from growing up with a Canadian mother and a Turkish father, who spoke seven languages and taught her to paint. Her art brims with optimism, experimentation, and a deep commitment to multiculturalism and human rights. She is the author of The Case for Loving, which she illustrated with her husband, Sean Qualls, and the co-illustrator, also with Sean, of Two Friends by Dean Robbins. She has written and illustrated several other acclaimed picture books, including Daddy Christmas & Hanukkah Mama and B Is for Brooklyn. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family. Learn more at selinaalko.com.
Dean Robbins is a journalist and the author of the children’s picture books Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, Margaret and the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Saved the First Lunar Landing, and Miss Paul and the President: The Creative Campaign for Women's Right to Vote. His award-winning books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews and have been praised in the New York Times and USA Today. Dean grew up idolizing Apollo astronauts and loved working with Alan Bean on The Astronaut Who Painted the Moon. Learn more at deanrobbins.net.
