Kathy-jo Wargin is the best-selling author of numerous children's books, including The Legend of Sleeping Bear. She has received many awards for her work, among them an International Reading Association Children's Choice Award for The Legend of the Loon and an IRA Teacher's Choice Award for Win One for the Gipper. In 2006 her first chapter book, Mitt, the Michigan Mouse, was published to launch a series on the midwest states. She lives in Minnesota with her family, photographer Ed Wargin and their son Jake.

Karen Busch Holman, a BFA graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is the illustrator for the Mitt and Minn Midwest Series. Karen's work as an illustrator first appeared in G is for Granite, A New Hampshire Alphabet, and its companion book, Primary Numbers, which solidified her career as an illustrator. She is also the creator of the art that adorns every New Hampshire Heirloom Birth Certificate. More of her work can be seen throughout New Hampshire in support of the Arts Council and in regional magazines and publications. She has actively shared her love of art with many elementary school children throughout New England. Karen now lives in Loveland, Ohio.