Rachel van Kooij was born in 1968 in the Dutch city of Wageningen. She has written numerous award-winning books for young readers. Her books have been translated into many languages such as Dutch, English, Korean, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Turkish. Some of them have a real or fictional historical background like Bartolomé: the Infanta's Pet or Eine Handvoll Karten (A Handful of Cards). Others take place in our time and tell the stories of children or teenagers experiencing challenging situations like the protagonists in Herr Krähe muss zu seiner Frau (Mr. Crow Must Return to His Wife).