Baby Ballers: Venus and Serena Williams

Bernadette Baillie is a Filipina American writer and speaker based in San Diego, California. Growing up in a sports-obsessed family, her first job was at a sporting goods store during the heyday of some of the greats of basketball, football, and baseball, including Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Walter Peyton, and Ken Griffey, Jr. She came of age at the exact time of the signature athlete shoe and sold hundreds of pairs of Air Jordans as a teenager. Bernadette earned a degree in Advertising from Pepperdine University before moving to New York City to work at MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, and Sony Music Entertainment. As a mom for four kids, she spends her time shuttling her kids to practices, games, the beach, and various skate parks. Finding ways to honor, depict, celebrate, and promote diversity in publishing is her lifelong passion.

Marta Garatea was born in Pamplona, Navarra, in the north of Spain, surrounded by mountains, forests, and amazing sunsets. When she was little, she enjoyed watching animal documentaries and her favorite movies—The Neverending Story, TLOTR, Inside the Labyrinth, and The Dark Crystal, along with many others from Disney. This explains why you can find little fairies and magical creatures in her art. She loves to transmit emotions with her illustrations, reflecting a mystical, dark and bright mist, along with feelings such as friendship, sadness, and joy. She studied comics in Escola Joso in Barcelona and always knew she wanted to become an illustrator so that children and adults could enjoy reading fantasy stories as she did. She now lives with her chubby old cat, Lynch, in Sabadell, where she cooks her grandma's recipes and keeps forgetting to drink her tea on time.