Lynne Jonell is the author of three novels and seven picture books for children, published by Henry Holt and Penguin/Putnam. Her first novel, Emmy & the Incredible Shrinking Rat, won the Minnesota Book Award, and her most recent novel, The Secret of Zoom, is a Junior Library Guild Selection. Her books have received starred reviews in Horn Book, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Sesame Street Parents, and have been published in eight languages. She teaches writing at the Loft Literary Center, is married and has two sons, and lives in Plymouth, Minnesota. She will launch a new chapter book series with Random House in 2010, beginning with Hamster Magic, and is currently working on the third in the Emmy & the Rat series, titled Emmy & the Rats in the Belfry, to be released in 2011.