Janet Schulman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 16, 1933. She graduated from Antioch College in 1956. She started her publishing career in 1959 at Macmillan, where she became the director of children's book marketing. She then worked for more than 30 years at Random House, where she was the last editor there to edit Dr. Seuss. She fought for equality for women in publishing. She also wrote numerous children's books including Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City, The Nutcracker, Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, A Bunny for All Seasons, and 10 Easter Egg Hunters: A Holiday Counting Book. She died of complications from lung cancer on February 11, 2011 at the age of 77.