Suzanne Slade loves finding out how things work. A former mechanical engineer, she once worked on Delta IV rockets and automotive brake systems. Now a full-time author, she has written more than one hundred children's books, including Friends for Freedom: The Story of Susan B. Anthony & Frederick Douglass and The House That George Built. Suzanne lives near Chicago, where she writes from home on her favorite invention—a laptop computer.

Jennifer Black Reinhardt is fascinated by the stories behind old objects. While researching this book, she studied the Victorian clothing and furnishings in her collection of antique photographs--and fell in love with fancy borders. Jennifer is the illustrator of Rabbi Benjamin's Buttons and The Adventures of a South Pole Pig (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). She could not have illustrated this book without the invention of the lightbulb.