Born in London, Patrick Skene Catling was educated there and at Oberlin College in the United States. As a Royal Canadian Air Force navigator and as a journalist, he has traveled extensively. His present home is in the Republic of Ireland./p. pThe original appearance of The Chocolate Touch in 1952 stirred much reviewer enthusiasm. The New York Herald Tribune remarked, "it has already proved a hilarious success with children," and The Saturday Review said, "it is told with an engaging humor that boys and girls will instantly discover and approve."
Margot Apple was born in Detroit, Michigan and earned a degree in art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She is a freelance illustrator, and collaborates with other authors, as well as illustrating her own picture books, and producing illustrations for Cricket and Ladybug magazines. She has illustrated more than fifty books for children and is best known for her collaboration with Nancy Shaw on the Sheep series. Apple is the author-illustrator of Blanket and Brave Martha and the illustrator of Appaloosa Zebra: A Horse Lover's Alphabet, Runaway Radish, and the "Sheep" books, including Sheep in a Jeep and Sheep Trick or Treat.