Kay Chorao is a children's writer and illustrator. She was born Ann McKay Sproat in Elkhart, Indiana, United States, into a middle-class, suburban family. She loved and was encouraged to draw at a young age. She attended Laurel School in Shaker Heights, OH. Chorao went to Wheaton College, where in 1958 she earned a Bachelor of Arts in art history. After that, Chorao pursued her graduate study at Chelsea School of Art from 1958 to 1959. Chorao got married and had three sons before moving to New York with her family. From 1966 to 1968, she studied book illustration at School of Visual Arts in New York. Besides writing self-illustrated children's books, Chorao has been the illustrator for many books by Jane Yolen, Judith Viorst, Jan Wahl, and Marjorie Sharmat.