Kathryn Apel is a born-and-bred farm girl who's scared of cows. She lives among the gum trees, cattle and kangaroos on a Queensland grazing property. The Bird in the Herd is Kat's second picture book, following her rollicking rural rhymer This is the Mud. She has also written three verse novels, including Bully on the Bus, winner of the 2014 Australian Family Therapists' Award for Children's Literature, and a 2019 NCSS and CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People (America). Kat loves pumping poetry because she can flex her muscles across other genres, to bend (and break) writing rules. A trained teacher, Kathryn shares her passion for words at schools and festivals around the globe. Renee Treml is the author and illustrator of several successful picture books for very young readers, including Once I Heard a Little Wombat, Ten Little Owls, and Roo Knows Blue. She is also the creator of the highly engaging and funny junior fiction graphic novel Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery and its sequel, Sherlock Bones and the Sea-Creature Feature. Renee has a degree in environmental science and has a passionate love of natural history.