Heike Conradi studied piano and elementary music education before going on to teach at a music school and at several nursery schools. Every week she would find herself in the company of happy, sad, lively, quiet, shy, and boisterous children full of music and fantasy—and they all loved hearing stories. Having lived and worked in Frankfurt, Freiburg, Chicago, Hamburg, and Singen, she has now settled down with her husband in Lower Saxony, Germany. Maja Dusíková studied art in Bratislava and graduated in graphic art and book illustration in 1973. During the last fifteen years, her work has been exhibited all over the world, and she has illustrated more than forty children’s books in her own inimitably beautiful style, including those she did for NorthSouth Books: Heidi and Advent Storybook. Since 1982 she and her family have lived in Florence, ltaly.
