Vera Baker Williams was an American children's writer and illustrator. Her best known work, A Chair for My Mother, has won multiple awards and was featured on the children's television show Reading Rainbow. For her lifetime contribution as a children's illustrator she was U.S. nominee in 2004 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. Additionally, she was awarded the 2009 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature.