JOANNE SCHWARTZ grew up in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Her first picture book, Our Corner Grocery Store, was a Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award finalist. Her picture book Town Is by the Sea won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and was a Governor General’s Literary Award nominee and a Boston Globe–Horn Book honoree. Joanne has been a children’s librarian for more than thirty years, and she has spent many dreamy days looking at beautiful picture books. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.