Watty Piper was a pen name of Arnold Munk, an owner of the publishing firm Platt & Munk. Arnold Munk used the name Watty Piper as both an author of children's books and as the editor of many of the books that Platt & Munk published.

Born in a sleepy little town in the hills of Pennsylvania, Jill Howarth always knew she wanted to be an artist. Upon graduating from Penn State University with a degree in graphic design, she entered the corporate design world. As a senior designer and then art director at Hasbro Toys, she occasionally embellished collateral and product packaging with fun little drawings. More requests for these illustrations came her way and before she knew it, she was doing more drawing and less layout design. After leaving corporate life to start a family, she began freelancing. She lives just west of Boston, with her husband, three teenagers and a crazy, lazy dog.