Poet Maya Angelou is, among other things, a novelist, playwright, actress, dancer, and civil rights activist. She is a professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was commissioned to write and read a poem for the 1993 presidential inauguration. Arist Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Haitian and Puerto Rican parents. His first artistic expressions were made and enjoyed as urban street art. Later he used more traditional artists' materials, winning fame and admiration in the art world. Basquiat died in 1988 at the age of 27. Editor Sara Jane Boyers shares her professional life between the entertainment industry and the art community. A television producer, collector of twentieth-century art, and mother of two, she created this, her first book, to introduce children and all readers to the best in literature and contemporary art.