Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems - Paperback

Paul B. Janeczko (1945-2019) was a poet and teacher who edited numerous award-winning poetry anthologies for young people, including A Poke in the I, A Kick in the Head, A Foot in the Mouth, and The Death of the Hat, all of which were illustrated by Chris Raschka; Firefly July, illustrated by Melissa Sweet; and The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems, illustrated by Richard Jones. He also wrote Worlds Afire; Requiem: Poems of the Terezín Ghetto; Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers, and Secret Writing; Double Cross: Deception Techniques in War; The Dark Game: True Spy Stories from Invisible Ink to CIA Moles, a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults; and Secret Soldiers: How the U.S. Twenty-Third Special Troops Fooled the Nazis.

Melissa Sweet has illustrated nearly one hundred books for children, including A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, a 2009 Caldecott Honor Book. She is also the creator of Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade, a 2012 Robert F. Sibert Medal Winner. Melissa Sweet lives in Rockport, Maine.