About the Authors and Illustrators for 2007

Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott grew up in a house filled with books and the sound of his dad’s typewriter clacking in the background. After graduating from UConn with a degree in English, Abbott traveled around Europe, worked in bookshops and wrote “strange” poetry. It wasn’t until he began reading stories to his two daughters that he was inspired to write children’s books. That led him to write more than 60 books for young readers aged six to twelve. His books have been translated into many languages and have sold more than sixty million copies worldwide. Abbott’s bestselling Secrets of Droon fantasy series is on many school reading lists. Tony Abbott's website

Natalie Babbitt

An award-winning artist and author, Natalie Babbitt began drawing and painting as a child in Ohio. Her mother, an amateur artist, gave her lessons and kept her supplied with “paper, pencils and encouragement.” In 1966, her husband, an academic administrator, wrote The Forty-ninth Magician, which she illustrated. The following year, she began both writing and illustrating books for children. Tuck Everlasting, the story of the Tuck family and the drinking water that makes them immortal, is considered a contemporary classic and was made into a film. Babbitt, who has won the Newbery Honor Medal says, “I write for children because I am interested in fantasy and the possibilities for experience of all kinds before the time of compromise. I believe that children are far more wise and perceptive than American books give them credit for being.”

Rebecca Bond

Rebecca Bond grew up in the postcard-pretty town of Peacham in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. It is considered the most photographed town in New England. The “wonderful people” who lived there are much like the folks in her newest (and delightful) picture book, The Great Doughnut Parade. Bond, both an author and an illustrator, attended Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Today she lives, writes and paints in an old house in Boston that she is carefully “fixing up.”

Tomie dePaola

Tomie dePaola’s mom read to him every day, which he says might be the reason he has loved books all his life. From the time he was a tot, he knew he wanted to be an author and an artist. Now, he has over two hundred books to his credit, more than one hundred of which he wrote. He has won the Caldecott Honor and the Newbery Honor and received the New Hampshire Governor’s Arts Award of Living Treasure. A traveler, a gourmet cook and a collector, dePaola works in a spacious studio attached to a restored, two hundred year old barn in New Hampshire. Recently, in the 26 Fairmount Avenue series, dePaola has been chronicling his own life. Strega Nona, the elderly witch he created, is beloved by children of multiple generations. This summer, Maggie and the Monster, which dePaola illustrated, was published. Tomie dePaola's website

Robert Forbes

Robert Forbes, the Vice President of Forbes Inc. and President of ForbesLife magazine, has written numerous essays on food and travel. He has also made several documentary films. In Beastly Feasts! A Mischievous Menagerie, he collaborates with the renowned illustrator Ronald Searle to give us a whimsical book of rhymes for all ages. In addition to writing poems, running his companies, and serving on boards, Forbes owns an organic vineyard in the Languedoc region of France.

Mary Downing Hahn

As a child, Mary Downing Hahn loved to draw and loved to read and loved to make up stories, but she hated to write. She especially disliked her teacher’s requirements for perfect penmanship, outlines, and such. However, by the time she was in junior high, she decided that she wanted to grow up and write and illustrate children’s books and with that in mind, she began work on her first book (which she never finished). It wasn’t until she was forty-one and had worked for years as a children’s librarian that she wrote and published her first book for children, The Sara Summer. Since then, she has written more than twenty novels for young readers, averaging about one a year. Her newest book, Deep and Dark and Dangerous, is a ghost story.

Charise Mericle Harper

Charise Mericle Harper, who was born in England, works in a studio in upper New York State where she creates book covers, children’s picture books, and art using mixed media and acrylic. Since 1996, she has written and drawn Eye-Spy, a popular comic strip syndicated to alternative newspapers. She has also produced comics for Nickelodeon Magazine. Harper has written and illustrated many picture books and middle readers. In her most recent book, Still Just Grace, she brings back third grader “Just” Grace from her first book, which Booklist described as “hilarious.” Charise Mericle Harper's website

Amy Hest

Amy Hest grew up on Long Island. She and her mom often went to the local library together where they each picked out books to read. By the time she was sixteen, Hest was pestering the director of the library to let her become a page. Finally, he gave her the job and she happily learned to shelve books. As a grownup, she earned her master’s degree in library science and worked in the New York Public Libraries. By then, she was secretly writing stories. Her first was published in 1982 and now she has written more than forty books with over one million copies sold. Her newest book, Remembering Mrs. Rossi, for eight to twelve year old readers, is set on Riverside Drive in New York City where Hest often goes for walks. It is the story of a young girl, Annie Rossi who shares much in common with the young Amy Hest. Both lose their mothers at an early age. “It’s a love story,” Hest says. “Although Mrs. Rossi is never on the page, she is always there in the story. If you’re lucky, the person you love is always there.”
Amy Hest's website

Jeff Kinney

Bestselling author, illustrator and blogger of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney posted the “diary” on Funbrain.com as he wrote (and continues to write) it. Seventy thousand readers view the site. In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, we “Meet Greg Heffley as he humorously records in text and cartoons the perils and plusses of middle school life, where undersize weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner and already shaving.” Prior to becoming an author and illustrator of children’s books, Kinney worked as a newspaper designer and a computer programmer. Jeff Kinney's blog

Daniel Kirk

Daniel Kirk’s mother and father were puppeteers. They “performed their own versions of Mother Goose, Aesop, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” When he was older, Kirk helped with the painting and prop making. He has enjoyed drawing, painting and sculpting since he was a young child. After studying art in college and teaching briefly, he went to New York City to focus on his art career. His illustrations appeared on the covers of leading magazines and on “postage stamps, billboards, grocery store packages, CD’s and book jackets,” before he turned to children’s books. He has written and illustrated many picture books. His newest is Library Mouse, a whimsical story about Sam, a little mouse who lives in a library and makes up his own stories, which he leaves around for patrons to find.
Daniel Kirk's website

E.B. Lewis

Watercolorist E.B. Lewis knew as early as the third grade that he wanted to be an artist. Inspired by his two uncles who were artists, he attended art school on weekends beginning in the sixth grade. After graduating from Temple University, he began teaching and freelancing. At first reluctant to tackle illustration for children, Lewis has now beautifully illustrated more than thirty picture books. He has won numerous awards including the Coretta Scott King Award and the Caldecott Honor. His art is widely exhibited. Lewis’ most recent book is D Is for Drinking Gourd: An African American Alphabet. E.B. Lewis' website

Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock grew up in New Jersey and North Dakota. Her very earliest memory is of lying on her “stomach on the floor, a crayon in each hand, drawing large colorful circles.” Her parents operated a portrait photography studio in New Jersey. Her father took the photos and her mother hand tinted them, which intrigued the young McClintock. Today, McClintock lives and works in a picturesque, early nineteenth century house with a fireplace in her studio. She has won numerous awards for her picture books, including four New YorkTimes Best Illustrated Book Awards. This autumn she was awarded the Connecticut Book Award for Children’s Illustrator for Adéle and Simon. Her most recent title is Mary and the Mouse and the Mouse and Mary.

Richard Michelson
Richard Michelson, who lives in western Massachusetts, writes poetry for adults and children and stories for children. His children’s books have won numerous awards, including a New Yorker Best Book Award and a Children’s Book Committee Book of the Year Award. Across the Alley, illustrated by E.B. Lewis, was one of two finalists for the 2006 National Jewish Book Award for Children’s Illustrated Books. Michelson owns the R. Michelson Galleries and represents numerous leading artists, including many children’s book illustrators such as Maurice Sendak, Jane Dyer, and others. His most recent book is Tuttle’s Red Barn, illustrated by Mary Azarian.
Richard Michelson's website

Linda Sue Park

Linda Sue Park won the Newbery Medal for her breathtaking historical YA novel A Single Shard about a twelfth century potter and the orphan who wants to learn from him. The daughter of Korean immigrants, Park has been writing stories and poems since she was four years old. She sold her first poem for one dollar when she was just nine. Her dad still has the check framed over his desk. Park worked in public relations, advertising, food journalism and as a teacher of English as a second language before turning to writing books. She writes both novels and picture books. Her most recent title, a light-hearted picture book, is Tap Dancing on the Roof: Fijo Poems. Fijo is a traditional Korean verse form. She uses it to write about such topics as school lunch, long division, and day’s end.
Linda Sue Park's website

Alison Paul

Alison Paul was born on Halloween and says that her parents have still not decided whether she was a trick or a treat. After a childhood spent in California, she moved east to attend the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, from which she recently graduated. Crow, published this autumn, was chosen as a Book Sense Pick. The story of a little girl with a wild imagination and the crow outside her window, Crow is Paul’s first book.

Matthew Reinhart

Matthew Reinhart was drawn to art from his earliest years. He drew dinosaurs and learned all their names before he learned to add and subtract. But his parents convinced him to study biology in preparation for a medical career and he graduated cum laude from Clemson. However, not feeling enthusiastic about medical school, he took a year off and moved to New York City. Here he met Robert Sabuda and discovered that one could actually live life as an artist. He attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and collaborated with Sabuda on his amazing paper-engineering projects. Today, he works on his own and with his partner Sabuda and his intricate pop-up books are bestsellers. Since his youth, Reinhart was captivated by George Lucas’ Star Wars, so the opportunity to create his newest book, the extraordinary STAR WARS: Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy, was a dream come true for him.
Matthew Reinhart's website

Sharon Robinson

Sharon Robinson, the daughter of baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, is the Director of Educational Programming for Major League Baseball. In this capacity, she manages a national character-education program designed to empower students with strategies to help them face obstacles. Robinson has written a memoir and several books about her father’s values. Her newest book, Slam Dunk, is the lively sequel to Safe at Home, featuring Elijah “Jumper” Breeze, a Harlem middle schooler.

Robert Sabuda

Robert Sabuda, who loved to draw and paint and make things from his earliest years, first encountered pop-up books while waiting in a dentist’s office with his mother. He was entranced and soon set about making his own. Throughout middle school and high school, he made pop-ups from the manila folders his mother brought home from work. After graduating from Pratt Institute, he worked as a package designer creating boxes for women’s underwear while he tried to establish himself as an illustrator of children’s books. After a series of small assignments such as Rambo coloring books, he began to write and illustrate his own books, and then returned to his first love, pop-ups. Sabuda is known world- wide as a master paper engineer and his books, and the books he does with his partner Matthew Reinhart, are bestsellers. His pop-ups include Encyclopedia Prehistorica Mega-Beasts, Christmas, Winter’s Tale and many others. Robert Sabuda's website

Bill Thomson

A professor at Hartford Art School, Bill Thomson has been recognized in many national and regional illustration competitions. His work has also been widely exhibited. His most recent book, Building with Dad is the story of a father and son who watch trucks, cranes, bulldozers and the busy construction crew that the father is part of, as they build a new school. Thomson’s illustrations are acrylic and colored pencil. Bill Thomson's website



Mo Willems

Mo Willems began his career as a writer and animator for television. He won six Emmy awards before turning to writing and illustrating his groundbreaking humorous stories for children. His picture books have topped the New York Times bestseller lists and he was the recipient of the Caldecott Honor for both Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (note: an original piece of art from Knuffle Bunny hangs at the UConn Co-op). Willems’ books have been made into theatrical productions and translated into many languages. His newest book is Knuffle Bunny Too. Mo Willems' website