LAURA JAMES is a self-taught painter and illustrator whose African- and Caribbean-American heritage and love of color, design and story inform her work. This book was inspired by her mother, a homemaker, nanny and domestic worker, along with Laura’s paintings in the Nanny Series. Her art has appeared in many solo and group exhibitions, textbooks and film, and the picture books Anna Carries Water and Boonoonoonous Hair! both by Olive Senior. Laura lives in the Bronx, New York.