A native of New York City, Tonya Bolden is a magna cum laude of Princeton University in Slavic Languages, the field in which she also earned her Masters degree from Columbia University. Bolden’s young adult biography, Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl won the James Madison Book Award (Excellence in American History) for 2006 and was named a A Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book also for 2006. Horn Book Magazine called Maritcha a “spirited social history.” Bolden focuses on African American heritage in her work and is the author of numerous biographies and histories for young readers.
Elise Broach tells us that she lives and works “in the woods of rural Connecticut, walking distance from three farms, a library, a post office and two country stores. ” Broach writes picture books for young children and mystery novels for young adults. Shakespeare’s Secret about a 500-year-old diamond necklace was an Edgar Nominee this spring for best juvenile mystery, as well as a summer Book Sense Pick. It was also chosen as both an ALA and NCTE Notable Book. Her newest picture book, Wet Dog has reviewers and readers laughing out loud.
After graduating with honors from Ohio University, Michael Buckley moved to New York City to seek his fortune. Instead, he says, he held jobs as “a pasta maker, hamburger flipper, personal assistant, stand-up comic, and even a singer in a punk rock band.” For the past ten years he has been in television production primarily in children’s programming. He has worked for the Discovery Network, MTV, and the producers of Nickelodeon's Rugrats. Buckley is the author of the popular Sisters Grimm series of modern fairy tale mysteries, featuring Sabrina and Daphne Grimm, amateur sleuths.
Eileen Christelow grew up in Connecticut and Washington D.C. She began her career as a photojournalist and graphic designer, photographing “buildings for architects” and doing photo essays on “urban life: skid row, Chinatown… political demonstrations.” However, she was fascinated with picture books and began to think about doing one herself. With her young daughter in tow, she “researched” the topic, checking out armloads of picture books from the library. She sold her first two in 1981 and has continued ever since, both writing and illustrating her stories. Christelow’s Five Little Monkeys books are perennial bestsellers. Her newest book is Letters from a Desperate Dog about Emma, her own dog.
Swiss born author and illustrator Etienne Delessert has created over 80 children’s books, many of which have been read by children all over the world. His art has been awarded nine gold and six silver medals from the Society of Illustrators in the US and internationally he has been twice awarded the Premio Graphico from the Bolgna Book Fair. His work has also appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers and has been widely exhibited and translated. In his most recent picture book, Humpty Dumpty, he presents an original and moving interpretation of this classic tale, taking an interesting look at the role of the wall in the story.
Mordicai Gerstein always knew he would be an artist, something his parents encouraged. As a young man, he had a highly successful career as a designer and director of animated films for twenty-five years. In 1971, Elizabeth Levy invited him to illustrate a book she’d written for young adults. Nine years later, he began writing his own stories to illustrate in addition to illustrating the works of Levy and others. In 2004, Gerstein won the prestigious Caldecott for The Man Who Walked Between Towers. Today he lives and works in a small town in western Massachusetts.
Both of Robie Harris’ parents were scientists: her mom worked in a biology lab before Robie was born and her dad was a radiologist. It was their love of science that led to her own interest in science. She also acquired the habit of writing every morning at an early age: her kindergarten teacher started each day by asking her students to draw a picture and tell a story about it; her second grade teacher asked each of her students to write for fifteen minutes a day. Her cousin, the writer Elizabeth Levy (see Gerstein) attended the same elementary school, and is Harris’ first reader to this day. After college, Harris became a teacher and then, with Irma Black and Bill Hooks, she worked for Captain Kangaroo, writing a song and the opening five-minute segment for each show. Harris is the author of numerous books. This year, the American Library Association noted that her book, It’s Perfectly Normal, was the most challenged book in 2005.
A graduate of the UConn School of Law, Janet Lawler was a practicing attorney before publishing her first children’s book, If Kisses Were Colors. She enjoys gardening, being outdoors, playing tennis, rollerblading, travel, nature and, most of all, time with her family. In addition to her books, her work has appeared in Highlights Magazine, Humpty Dumpty Magazine, in greeting cards and elsewhere. Lawler has a study in her home, but says that she often writes “while sitting outside on a sunny day, or in the car at a soccer or basketball practice or in a doctor’s waiting room.”
Salley Mavor has been intrigued by three-dimensional art since her youth, often gluing found treasures to her early drawings. While at the Rhode Island School of Design, she began experimenting with assemblages and after graduation was selling stuffed fabric pins, “housewife dolls,” and designing sewing projects for women’s magazines. Soon she was sewing miniature scenes complete with little people, their houses, landscapes and animals all made from bits of fabric. It took her ten years to perfect this process, which she now uses to illustrate children’s books. Mavor also offers kits so you can make your own fairies and has written a book, Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects in which she tells you how to make your own dolls. In her most recent book for children she has interpreted the well-known nursery rhyme, Wee Willie Winkie with her fabric art.
Though known to people in the book industry as a workaholic, Wendell Minor considers himself a “traditionalist and a romantic.” He is particularly interested in the landscape, the environment and history. This passion is reflected in his stirring picture books for children, many of which have won awards. Minor is also well-known for his book jacket illustrations which have graced more than 2000 books to date, including many national bestsellers (note: books are judged by their covers). Minor’s most recent books are Luck: The Story of a Sandhill Crane, which he illustrated and Jean Craighead George wrote, and Yankee Doodle America: The Spirit of 1776 From A to Z , which he wrote and illustrated. Minor’s art is widely exhibited.
Florence Minor was a film editor for ABC news for many years, including stints for “20/20” and “Close Up.” Today, she and her husband Wendell Minor are business partners, sharing a home and their work in rural Litchfield County. They collaborated on the bestselling Christmas Tree. She also served as coeditor of Wendell Minor: Art For the Written Word.
Heidi Stemple grew up on a former tobacco farm in the Connecticut River Valley where her parents invited artists and artisans, such as potters, silversmiths, and leather workers to set up workshops in one of their barns. Her mom is the writer Jane Yolen. But Stemple eschewed the artistic life and gave no consideration to becoming a writer. Instead, she left New England to go to college in Florida and then worked as a probation officer and private detective. Today Stemple is back in western Massachusetts, a full-time Mom and very committed to the writing life. She has written or contributed to more than a dozen books including Fairy Tale Feasts. She is currently working on several projects.
Eric Velasquez was born in Spanish Harlem to Afro-Puerto Rican parents and grew up in Harlem. As a child, he loved to doodle and draw, something his mother encouraged. By secondary school he knew he wanted to be an artist. He attended the High School of Art and Design followed by the School of Visual Arts where he earned a BFA, and a year at the Art Student’s League. During the early years of his career, he focused on paintings for book jackets plus interior illustrations. He did the complete Encyclopedia Brown series, plus the Apple Classic series published by Scholastic, and many other projects. By 1997, Velasquez was illustrating picture books and winning awards. His most recent book is The Other Mozart: The Life of the Chevalier Saint-George written by Hugh Brewster.
Fortunately for young readers everywhere, Walter Wick’s older brother got a part time job in a camera shop when Walter was in high school and thus introduced him to photography. Wick was smitten! He studied at Paier College of Art in Hamden and then worked in Hartford for a commercial studio. Soon, he moved to New York to start his own studio. One day, he writes, he was “organizing screws, paper clips and other odds and ends” and liked the way they looked on his light box. The photograph that he took that day “was the spark that helped inspire the first I Spy Book.” Today, Wick has a spacious studio in a restored firehouse. Here he builds his elaborate sets and photographs them, creating the wonderful optical illusions and puzzles for his best selling books. This fall Can You See What I See? Once Upon A Time, his fifth Can You See book, was published to wide acclaim. The New Britain Museum of American Art is exhibiting Wick’s work through November 26. (Please visit http://www.walterwick.com/nbmaa.htm for more information.)
Hans Wilhelm grew up in his family’s country home in post World War II Germany. He liked to draw from his earliest years, though his father feared that the life of an artist was filled with too many economic uncertainties and encouraged him to study business. Wilhelm followed his father’s advice but took art classes at night. As a young man, he moved to South Africa where he studied art and performed in theaters and enjoyed the travel that his work as salesman brought him. Dismayed by apartheid, he sold everything and moved about the world for a few years. While living in London, he sold his first picture book. Shortly afterwards, Wilhelm moved to the US where his picture book career took off with many bestsellers. The Christmas Angel was published this fall.
Andrew Wisnewski has developed a unique and interesting process for her images. She begins by making a drawing on vellum. She transfers this design “onto a black, clay-coated paper.” Then, using an Exacto knife, she painstakingly creates an intricate papercut of the image. Once this stage is complete, a magnesium plate is made. She places this plate into the handmade printing press her husband built for her, and prints copies. She often completes the prints by handcoloring them with water colors. Wisnewski began drawing when she was a child and has never stopped. She received her BFA from UConn and now runs Running Rabbit Press and creates illustrations for magazines and newspapers. This year David Godine published her version of Little Red Riding Hood.
A high achiever from her youngest years, Jane Yolen sang in the choir, was news editor of her school paper, and was always in the top of her class. A young woman of many talents, she was captain of her high school basketball team and she studied ballet at Balanchine’s School of American Ballet. During her Smith College years, her poems were published in various literary journals. After graduation, she landed a job as an editor, but wrote during every spare moment, “during lunch breaks and evenings and weekends.” Then, to her delight and surprise she sold her first book, a children’s book, when she was only twenty-two. In fact, it was accepted on her birthday. Since then, she has published more than 250 books in multiple genres, including picture books, poetry, fantasy novels, folk tales, and more! Yolen has won many awards for her work, including two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, and the Golden Kite Award. Young readers will be delighted with her newest Dinosaur book illustrated by Mark Teague, How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors.
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