Meet the Meerkat

Darrin Lunde has worked as a mammalogist at the American Museum of Natural History and at the Smithsonian Institute. His work has brought him into contact with all kinds of animals, big and small, throughout the remote forests of South America, Africa, and Asia where he camped for months at a time to survey species diversity and to discover new species. He is the author of Hello, Bumblebee Bat, a Theodor Seuss Geisel Award Honor Book, After the Kill, and other books about animals. He lives in Washington, DC.

Patricia J. Wynne’s art has appeared in galleries, magazines, newspapers and more than 100 books for both children and adults. She has been publishing since she was eight years old, when her story about an old arrowhead found in her backyard appeared in an airline newspaper. She did her graduate work in printmaking at the University of Iowa, and attended the Iowa Writers Workshop at the same time. After teaching art and art history at the University of Windsor and Wayne State University, initiating a gallery career and working as the staff artist for the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan, Wynne moved to New York City and began freelancing. Her editorial art has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Food and Wine, Cricket and Scientific American and her illustrations and expertise are consistently sought by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History, most recently for Dark Banquet: The Curious Lives of Blood Feeding Creatures. Her books have won many awards, including honors from Parenting Magazine, the John Burroughs Association, the National Science Teachers Association and in 2008 Wynne received a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor.