Russell Freedman has a long career of publishing nonfiction children's books in a pioneering format, using compelling photographs to illustrate his work. After painstaking research in photograph archives, he was able to illustrate his informative natural history series and has utilized historical photographs to illustrate his books about cowboys, children, and Indians of the American West. Lincoln: A Photobiography won the 1988 Newbery Medal.

Freedman was born on October 11, 1929 in San Francisco, one of two children. "My father was a great storyteller. The problem was, we never knew for sure whether the stories he told were fiction or nonfiction. He was also a dedicated bookman. In fact, my parents met in a bookshop. She was a sales clerk, and he was a sales representative for Macmillan. They held their first conversation over a stack of bestsellers, and before they knew it, they were married. I had the good fortune...