Author of over 400 Books for Children and Adults
Before he became Children’s Poet Laureate, Pat Lewis and I had sold several other poetry collections together–Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers, the Life of Chagall in Verse, came out first. Then Take Two, our book of twin poems. (He’s a twin, I am grandmother of twins.) The third book we sold was
So the wonderful editor of the Scholastic novelty books, Jeff Salane, and I were having lunch in the Scholastic cafeteria, and we were looking for new How Do Dinosaurs novelty projects to complement the regular books. Having just finished a cook book with my wonderful daughter Heidi (taste-testing recipes can put
Bug Off, our latest book of nature poems, is all about insects, bugs, creepy crawlies. And like the other books I have done with Jason (my youngest son, an award-winning photographer), it begins with his photographs. I noticed he already had a lot of pictures of bugs–a praying mantis, butterflies,
This book began when Pat Lewis and I talked about a possible book together. He is a twin and I have twin granddaughters and twin aunts and twin brothers-in-law, so we began writing poems back and forth to one another. Along the way, Pat became the third Children’s Poet Laureate in
Every dino has a birthday!
One of my favorite Scandanavian folk tales is “The Cat of the Dovrfell” and when Linda Graves, a member of WMIG, the Western Massachusetts Illustrators’ (which I’d started years ago) showed a folktale picture of a Finnish/Danish girl in full costume with a white bear cub at one of our meetings, I found my inspiriation for this retelling.
To say I am astonished that this book is finally coming out is an understatement. It literally took years to find the right editor and when it did, she (Heidi Kilgras of Random House) became so lovingly invested in the story and in finding the right artist for it, my own investment was returned
More bird poems, all of them written to respond to Jason’s brilliant photographs, and with an introduction/appreciation by the world’s greatest birdsong expert, Don Kroodsma. These books are always a labor of love, mainly because I think the photographs should be seen by everyone.
My daughter Heidi and I wrote this little rhymed book for Little Simon, which is the novelty imprint of S&S. A novelty book has other features than just words and pictures. This is an enlarged board book with a soft cover. We wrote and rewrote it till the two of us were happy enough, sent it to
The publisher says, “Creep, gurgle, crawl, tumble! Meet two young monsters who are far from scary—they’re too busy having fun. They go to school, play outside with their friends, and eat after-school snacks. But they also have a bedtime, whether or not they’re ready for it! Young children and