Aliki Liacouras Brandenberg, published most often under her first name, was born on September 3rd in New Jersey. She can't remember a time when she wasn't drawing. In first grade, she even stopped biting her nails for a week to earn the reward of a book about drawing. Aliki is well-known as a writer and illustrator of nonfiction, particularly history, biography, and science. She graduated from the Philadelphia Museum College of Art and worked for several years as a commercial artist. A world traveler, Aliki met her husband Franz Brandenberg, also a children's book author, in Greece in 1956. They married and, while living in Switzerland, Aliki wrote and illustrated her first book, The Story of William Tell (Faber and Faber, London, 1960). She makes dolls and has worked in silver, enamel, ceramics, papier-mâché, clay, and
various forms of collage.

—Vicki Palmquist