Spike Lee is one of the most prominent and influential media figures today. His films include the critically acclaimed School Daze; Academy Award nominee Do the Right Thing; Malcolm X; Clockers; and 25th Hour. Born in Atlanta, Spike attended Morehouse College and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned his master of fine arts degree in film production. Spike and his wife are the authors of Please, Baby, Please, their first picture book with Simon & Schuster. They live in New York City with their two children.
Tonya Lewis Lee is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Virginia School of Law. As a children’s television producer she has worked with Disney, Nickelodeon, and Noggin/The N, where she was the executive producer of the award-winning documentary
I Sit Where I Want: The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education and the critically acclaimed miniseries
Miracle’s Boys. She is also the author of
Gotham Diaries, her first novel.
Kadir Nelson is an award-winning American artist whose works have been exhibited in major national and international publications, institutions, art galleries, and museums. Nelson is the illustrator of many beloved, award-winning, and bestselling picture books including,
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, winner of the Coretta Scott King and Robert F. Sibert Award;
Thunder Rose, written by Jerdine Nolen, which received a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award;
Ellington Was Not a Street, written by Ntozake Shange, which received a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award;
Hewitt Anderson’s Great Big Life, written by Jerdine Nolen, which won the 2005 Society of Illustrators Gold Medal; and
Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya by Donna Jo Napoli called "stunning" by
Kirkus Reviews in a starred review. He is also the illustrator of Deloris Jordan and Roslyn M. Jordan’s
Salt in His Shoes and Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee’s
Please, Baby, Please and
Please, Puppy, Please. Kadir Nelson lives in Los Angeles.