Fearless Firsts: Athletes Who Changed the Game

James Buckley Jr. is one of the country’s most prolific writers of sports and nonfiction for kids, with more than 200 titles to his name, including twenty in the New York Times bestselling Who Was…? biography series, nine books in the Show Me History graphic nonfiction series, and fifteen years of writing the Scholastic Year in Sports. A former editor with Sports Illustrated and NFL Publishing, he runs Shoreline Publishing Group, a leading producer of nonfiction kids’ books for national and school-library publishers. James lives in Santa Barbara, California. 

Ellen Labrecque has written over 100 nonfiction books for children. She has authored ten biographies in the New York Times best-selling Who Was. . .? series, including David Beckham, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O’Neal. She enjoys exploring various topics and has channeled this research into other books on sports, outer space, animals, jungles, and the environment. Ellen was a writer and editor at Sports Illustrated Kids magazine for nine years, writing profiles on athletes and covering Olympics and other sporting events. She now writes from her Bucks County, Pennsylvania home with her family and her dog Oscar.

Steffi Walthall is an illustrator and character designer born, raised, and currently living in Virginia. From a young age, she could always be found with pencil and paper in hand. Steffi took this passion for art halfway down the east coast to Georgia, where she received her BFA in Game Development from the Savannah College of Art & Design. During her time in school, she developed a line-focused, graphic style. Working primarily in Photoshop, she focuses on crafting a diverse range of characters and unique stories. Steffi draws most of her inspiration from mythology, history, film, and science fiction.