American lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key witnessed the British attack on Fort McHenry at Baltimore on 13/14 September 1814 and afterward wrote "Defense of Fort M'Henry," the poem, set to the mus…
Mary Pope Osborne is an American author of children's books and audiobook narrator. She is best known as the author of the Magic Tree House series, which as of 2017 sold more than 134 million copies w…
Mercer Mayer is an American children's author and illustrator. He has published over 300 books, using a wide range of illustrative styles. Mayer is best known for his Little Critter and Little Monster…
Eric Carle was an American author, designer and illustrator of children's books. His picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, first published in 1969, has been translated into more than 66 languages …
Kenneth Grahame was a British writer. He is best remembered for the classic of children's literature The Wind in the Willows (1908). Scottish by birth, he spent most of his childhood with his grandmot…
David Hackett Fischer is University Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University and one of America’s most influential historians. His work spans cultural history, economics, and narrative non…
Rodman Philbrick grew up on the New England coast, where he worked as a longshoreman and boat builder. For many years he wrote mysteries and detective…
Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has…
John Robert McCloskey was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He both wrote and illustrated eight picture books and won two Caldecott Medals from the American Library Association r…
Virginia Lee Burton was an American illustrator and children's book author. Burton produced seven self-illustrated children's books. She married Boston Museum school sculptor, George Demetrios, with w…
Why am I a writer? When I was a young girl, I wanted to be a teacher. I’d line up my stuffed animals in front of a board and teach them the alphabet and how to count. In high school I wanted to be a t…
William Steig was born in New York City in 1907. In a family where every member was involved in the arts, it was not surprising that Steig became an artist.
Jon Scieszka is an American children's writer, best known for picture books created with the illustrator Lane Smith. He is also a nationally recognized reading advocate, and the founder of Guys Read –…
Kay Winters, a former teacher and language arts consultant, is now devoting herself to writing for children full-time. Kay is the author of a number of children's books, including Whooo's Haunting The…
Paul O. Zelinsky grew up in Wilmette, Illinois, the son of a mathematics professor and a medical illustrator. He drew compulsively from an early age, but did not know until college that this …
Growing up I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about …
An American children's book author and illustrator, and a high school teacher, Marcia Brown was born in Rochester, New York in 1918, and was educated at The New York State College for Teachers (now Un…
Allen Say is one of the most beloved artists working today. He is the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for GRANDFATHER'S JOURNEY, and also won a Caldecott Honor and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award fo…
Marla Frazee was awarded a Caldecott Honor for All the World and A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever and the Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Picture Book for The Farmer and the Clown. She is the…
Brian Floca is the author-illustrator of the Caldecott Medal winner Locomotive, the Robert F. Sibert Honor books Moonshot and Lightship, and other picture books, and is the illustrator of many more bo…
Jon Klassen received the 2010 Canadian Governor General’s Award for his illustrations in Caroline Stutson’s Cat's Night Out. He also created illustrations for the popular series The Incorrigible Child…
Revius was born in Deventer, the son of the town's mayor, Ryck Reefsen, during the Dutch Revolt. Not long after his birth, in 1587, Deventer fell into Spanish hands and his mother fled with him to Ams…
Eliza Wheeler is the author-illustrator of MISS MAPLE'S SEEDS (Penguin), which debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list. She is also the illustrator of the Newbery Honor winning novel by Holly Bl…
Jean de Brunhoff was a French writer and illustrator known for co-creating Babar, which first appeared in 1931. The stories were originally told to their second son, Mathieu, when he was sick, by his …
