Bagram Ibatoulline was born in Russia, graduated from the State Academic Institute of Arts in Moscow, and has worked in the fields of fine arts, graphic arts, mural design, and textile design. He has illustrated CROSSING by Philip Booth, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, and THE NIGHTINGALE by Hans Christian Andersen as retold by Stephen Mitchell. He says, "As I was working on THE ANIMAL HEDGE, I was most influenced by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American folk art. I appreciate the naiveté of those untrained painters."