Helene J. Jordan was a science editor associated with the American Museum of Natural History. She also served as the editor of Natural History magazine and as the director of the Rockefeller University Press.

Loretta Krupinski has illustrated several children's books, including Dear Rebecca, Winter Is Here by Jean Craighead George, The Irish Cinderlad by Shirley Climo, and her own Into the Woods: A Woodland Scrapbook. She has also illustrated one other book in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series, Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro. She successfully grew all the bean plants pictured in this book. She lives on the coast of Maine.