David Wiesner’s Followers (621)

David Wiesner

Born

in Bridgewater, New Jersey, The United States

February 05, 1956

Website

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/wie...

Genre

Children's, Art

edit data

During David Wiesner's formative years, the last images he saw before closing his eyes at night were the books, rockets, elephant heads, clocks, and magnifying glasses that decorated the wallpaper of his room. Perhaps it was this decor which awakened his creativity and gave it the dreamlike, imaginative quality so often found in his work.

As a child growing up in suburban New Jersey, Wiesner re-created his world daily in his imagination. His home and his neighborhood became anything from a faraway planet to a prehistoric jungle. When the everyday play stopped, he would follow his imaginary playmates into the pages of books, wandering among dinosaurs in the World Book Encyclopedia. The images before him generated a love of detail, an admirati During David Wiesner's formative years, the last images he saw before closing his eyes at night were the books, rockets, elephant heads, clocks, and magnifying glasses that decorated the wallpaper of his room. Perhaps it was this decor which awakened his creativity and gave it the dreamlike, imaginative quality so often found in his work.

As a child growing up in suburban New Jersey, Wiesner re-created his world daily in his imagination. His home and his neighborhood became anything from a faraway planet to a prehistoric jungle. When the everyday play stopped, he would follow his imaginary playmates into the pages of books, wandering among dinosaurs in the World Book Encyclopedia. The images before him generated a love of detail, an admiration for the creative process, and a curiosity about the hand behind the drawings.

In time, the young Wiesner began exploring the history of art, delving into the Renaissance at first — Michelangelo, Dürer, and da Vinci — then moving on to such surrealists as Magritte, de Chirico, and Dalí. As he got older, he would sit, inspired by these masters, at the oak drafting table his father had found for him and would construct new worlds on paper and create wordless comic books, such as Slop the Wonder Pig, and silent movies, like his kung fu vampire film The Saga of Butchula.

Wiesner has always been intrigued by and curious about what comes before and after the captured image. His books somehow convey the sequence of thoughts leading up to and following each picture, and that quality explain why they are frequently described as cinematic.

At the Rhode Island School of Design, Wiesner was able to commit himself to the full-time study of art and to explore further his passion for wordless storytelling. There he met two people who would figure prominently in his life: Tom Sgouros, to whom Tuesday is dedicated, and David Macaulay, to whom The Three Pigs is dedicated. These two men not only taught Wiesner the fundamentals of drawing and painting but also fostered his imaginative spirit and helped him comprehend the world around him. Sgouros's and Macaulay's artistic influences were vital to Wiesner's development into the acclaimed picture-book author he is today.

David Wiesner has illustrated more than twenty award-winning books for young readers. Two of the picture books he both wrote and illustrated became instant classics when they won the prestigious Caldecott Medal: Tuesday in 1992 and The Three Pigs in 2002. Two of his other titles, Sector 7 and Free Fall, are Caldecott Honor Books. An exhibit of Wiesner's original artwork, "Seeing the Story," toured the United States in 2000 and 2001. Among his many honors, Wiesner holds the Japan Picture Book Award for Tuesday, the Prix Sorcières (the French equivalent of the Caldecott Medal) for The Three Pigs, and a 2004 IBBY Honour Book nomination for illustration, also for The Three Pigs. Flotsam, his most recent work, was a New York Times bestseller and was recently named winner of the 2007 Caldecott Medal, making Wiesner only the second person in the award’s long history to have won three times.

Wiesner lives with his wife and their son and daughter in the Philadelphia area, where he continues to create dreamlike and inventive images for books. ...more

Combine Editions
David Wiesner’s books

Average rating: 4.12 · 108,776 ratings · 12,556 reviews · 96 distinct works • Similar authors

	Flotsam 4.24 avg rating — 27,043 ratings — published 2006 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tuesday 4.16 avg rating — 27,449 ratings — published 1991 — 37 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Three Pigs 4.16 avg rating — 20,621 ratings — published 2001	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Art & Max 4.07 avg rating — 7,214 ratings — published 2010 — 25 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mr. Wuffles! 3.96 avg rating — 7,142 ratings — published 2013 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sector 7 4.21 avg rating — 5,437 ratings — published 1999 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Free Fall 3.93 avg rating — 2,688 ratings — published 1991 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	June 29, 1999 4.11 avg rating — 2,512 ratings — published 1992 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hurricane 3.77 avg rating — 1,025 ratings — published 1990 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	I Got It! 3.22 avg rating — 729 ratings — published 2018 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by David Wiesner…

Quotes by David Wiesner (?)

“Before they read words, children are reading pictures.”
― David Wiesner, Free Fall

tags: mo-willems, picture-book-winners, picture-books, rosemary-wells, yumi-heo

41 likes

Polls

Which book should receive our second Mock Caldecott award?

Locomotive by Brian Floca

14 votes 27.5%

The Dark by Lemony Snicket

10 votes 19.6%

Mr. Wuffles! by David Wiesner

9 votes 17.6%

Hank Finds an Egg by Rebecca Dudley

7 votes 13.7%

The Tortoise & the Hare by Jerry Pinkney

4 votes 7.8%

How to Train a Trainby Jason Carter Eaton

3 votes 5.9%

If You Want to See a Whale by Julie Fogliano

2 votes 3.9%

On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne

2 votes 3.9%

51 total votes

1 comment

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
100+ Books in 2025: Kellee's 2010 Books	77	119	Jan 01, 2011 02:10AM
Mock Caldecott 2026: The year is coming to a close.	34	119	Jan 11, 2011 03:40PM
Children's Books: January 2011: Discuss Our "Wordless Picture Book" Club Reads HERE	169	82	Jan 31, 2011 03:03PM
Children's Books: Best Picture Book Ever???	18	48	Mar 15, 2011 10:19AM
Children's Books: Criteria for Good Children's Books?	16	184	May 07, 2011 05:25AM
Caldecott Books: Wordless books	3	51	Jul 25, 2011 08:09AM
Children's Books: Wordless Books by David Wiesner	5	44	Sep 02, 2011 05:40AM
Chicks On Lit: Title and Author Game	4053	1746	Apr 16, 2013 09:48AM

More…

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite David to Goodreads.

David Wiesner’s Followers (621)

David Wiesner

Combine EditionsDavid Wiesner’s books

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
David Wiesner’s books