Dav Pilkey is an award-winning and worldwide bestselling author and illustrator. With humor and heart, his stories celebrate friendship, imagination, and the triumph of the good-hearted. His #1 bestselling Dog Man series has 40 million copies in print, translated in 40 languages, and is being developed as a feature film by DreamWorks Animation. Exploring themes including kindness, courage, empathy, and doing good, the unique style of these graphic novels is intended to encourage the love of reading and creativity in kids and readers of all ages. Dav’s first graphic novel, The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, was published nearly 20 years ago and was an instant national bestseller. Cat Kid Comic Club, his latest bestselling graphic novel, launched in 2020 to critical acclaim. His Captain Underpants series has sold more than 90 million copies, was adapted as a movie as well as an original Netflix TV series. Dav recently collaborated with the Library of Congress and Scholastic to launch “Dav Pilkey at Home,” an initiative that provides free and engaging online content for kids and families during the pandemic crisis lockdown.

As a child, Dav was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD and was often sent out in the hallway by his teachers. While alone in the hallway, he drew and created stories that evolved into Dog Man and Captain Underpants. In college, Dav met a teacher who encouraged him to illustrate and write. He won a national competition and the prize was the publication of his first book, World War Won. Since then, he made many books and won awards, including a Caldecott Honor in 1997 for The Paperboy.

Chicago native Peter CottonTale is a Grammy Award winning Producer, Composer, Musical Director and Artist, principally known for his collaborations with Chance the Rapper, whose historic Grammy Award Winning album Coloring Book Peter executive produced. Peter independently released his debut album CATCH in April 2020, which KCRW and other stations listed among its 2020 Top 10 Albums of the year. Aside from Chance the Rapper, Peter has collaborated with SZA, Justin Bieber, Jamila Woods, Tank & the Bangas, Clairo and Vic Mensa, among others. Peter composed “Together” for Google's 2020 Year in Search campaign, and earned the distinction of being the first artist to be featured on Google’s homepage. Through the music he makes, and through his leadership in the studio when working with other artists, Peter hopes to help people feel free to express what they believe and who they are.

A 10-year veteran Kansas teacher, Tabatha is the first early childhood educator to be named National Teacher of the Year. She teaches preschool for Winfield Early Learning Center (WELC) in Winfield, Kansas. Housed in Cumbernauld Village, a local retirement community and nursing home, her inclusive classroom is an intergenerational program that provides preschoolers and residents with multiple daily interactions and serves special education and typically developing preschoolers in a full-day setting. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of school buildings across the country, Rosproy served as a co-chair of the educator task force that helped compile Kansas’s continuous. A career preschool educator, Rosproy hopes to bring a voice to the important role early childhood education plays in our society and to highlight the value of social-emotional education at all age levels. Rosproy is a member of the Cowley County Special Services Cooperative Early Childhood Academy Team, which provides training and support in positive behavior interventions for early childhood teachers in her county.