Jean Day Zallinger was born in February 1918, in Boston, Mass. She attended the Massachusetts College of Art and received a B.F.A. from the Yale School of Fine Arts in 1942. Mrs. Zallinger has illustrated numerous children's books, mainly non-fictional works about animals and plants, including such titles as Biography of a Leaf, Discovering What Earthworms Do, The Earliest Americans, and Sea Creatures Do Amazing Things.