JACK PRELUTSKY, long considered the unofficial poet laureate of elementary school kids, was officially names the nation's first Children's Poet Laureate in 2006. He has written more than forty books of verse, ranging from his big collectionsof more than one hundred verses each-such as The New Kid on the Block and It's Raining Pigs and Noodles-to his delightful picture book collections such as- Good Sports- Rhymes About Running, Jumping, Throwing, and More and Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant, a Lee Bennet Hopkins Honor Book. In addition to The Random House Books of Poetry for Children, he has also compiled The 20th- Century Children's Poetry Treasury, The Beauty of the Beast, Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young, and eight other award-winning anthologies. He was born in the Bronx, has traveled to all fifty states to promote poetry, and now lives in Seattle with his wife, Carolyn. ARNOLD LOBEL began his career in children's books in 1961 and illustrated over seventy books, some of which he also wrote. He received the Caldecott Medal for Fables in 1981 and a Caldecott Honor in 1971 for Frog and Toad Are Friends. It's sequel, Frog and Toad Together, was an 1973 Newberry Honor Book. His last major project before his death in 1987 was The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose (originally published as The Random House Book of Mother Goose). He is widely considered one of the greatest children's book illustrators of the twentieth century.