Jessie Oliveros
Jessie grew up watching Kansas sunsets, and she’ll always have wild sunflowers and gold-tipped cornfields in her heart. She spent her college-life climbing mountains in Utah and striving for higher vistas. After a fulfilling career as a registered nurse, Jessie hung up her stethoscope to grow children and stories. She loves root beer floats, autumn, and running in the rain. These days you can find her in the Texas hill country with her husband and their five kids.
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Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor, J.D. (Yale Law School, 1979; B.A., Princeton University, 1976), is the 99th Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, nominated by President Barack Obama to fill the seat of the retiring Justice David Souter and taking office August 8, 2009.
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Previously, she served as editor of the Yale Law Review, and as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner, 1984–1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She served as a judge on t -
Jessica Reid Sliwerski
Jessica Reid Sliwerski is a literacy specialist, reading enthusiast, and former elementary school teacher. This picture book was inspired by her own breast cancer treatment and recovery. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and daughter.
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Jacqueline Woodson
I used to say I’d be a teacher or a lawyer or a hairdresser when I grew up but even as I said these things, I knew what made me happiest was writing.
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I wrote on everything and everywhere. I remember my uncle catching me writing my name in graffiti on the side of a building. (It was not pretty for me when my mother found out.) I wrote on paper bags and my shoes and denim binders. I chalked stories across sidewalks and penciled tiny tales in notebook margins. I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.
I also told a lot of stories as a child. Not “Once upon a time” stories but basically, outright lies. I loved lying and getting away with it! There was something about telling the lie-story and -
Peter H. Reynolds
Peter Hamilton Reynolds is an author and illustrator of children's books and is the co-Founder and CEO of educational media company FableVision.
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Matt de la Peña
Matt de la Peña is the New York Times best-selling, Newbery-medal-winning author of six young adult novels and four picture books. Matt received his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University and his BA from the University of the Pacific, where he attended school on a full athletic scholarship for basketball. de la Peña currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. He teaches creative writing and visits high schools and colleges throughout the country.
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Visit Matt at: mattdelapena.com -
Derrick Barnes
Where I come from, no one dreams of becoming an author.
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I didn’t know any famous African American male authors. I didn’t actually meet one until I attended college. I wanted to be a football player, the next Sean Combs, or a rapper; anything that would instantly provide me with the riches I would need to “move my mama off of the block”. I was raised in a single parent household by my mother, the lovely Miss Catherine Barnes, along with my big brother, Anthony, in Kansas City, MO.
My first attempt at writing a real story was in the fifth grade. I think it was about a group of stray dogs trekking across the country to find a magic bone or something. I can’t remember. But I do remember what it felt like when I finished and read it. It felt power -
Kwame Alexander
Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and New York Times Bestselling author of 21 books, including The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American literature for Children, the Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor, The NCTE Charlotte Huck Honor, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, and the Passaic Poetry Prize. Kwame writes for children of all ages. His other works include Surf's Up, a picture book; Booked, a middle grade novel; and He Said She Said, a YA novel.
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Kwame believes that poetry can change the world, and he uses it to inspire and empower young people through his PAGE TO STAGE Writing and Publishing Program released by Scholastic. A regular speaker at colleges and confere -
Yuyi Morales
Yuyi Morales is the illustrator of Kathleen Krull’s Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, whose accolades include a Pura Belpré Award and a Christopher Medal, as well as the Pura Belpré Award-winning Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes. Born and raised in Mexico, she now lives in northern California.
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Meg Medina
Meg Medina served as the 2023-2024 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. She is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Merci Suárez Changes Gears, which was also a 2018 Kirkus Prize finalist, and which was followed by two more acclaimed books about the Suárez family: Merci Suárez Can’t Dance and Merci Suárez Plays It Cool. Her young adult novels include Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, which won the 2014 Pura Belpré Author Award, and which was published in 2023 as a graphic novel illustrated by Mel Valentine Vargas; Burn Baby Burn, which was long-listed for the National Book Award; and The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind. She is also the author of picture books No More Señora Mimí / No más Señora Mimí, Evelyn Del Rey
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Jory John
Jory John is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time E.B. White Read-Aloud Honor recipient.
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Jory's work includes the #1 New York Times bestselling picture book, The Good Egg, and the #2 New York Times bestselling picture book, The Bad Seed, both illustrated by Pete Oswald. He is also the author of the popular picture books, Penguin Problems and Giraffe Problems, both illustrated by Lane Smith, the award-winning Goodnight Already! series, illustrated by Benji Davies, the New York Times bestselling Terrible Two series, the recent picture books Quit Calling Me a Monster! (with Bob Shea), Can Somebody Please Scratch My Back? (with Liz Climo), and the international bestseller, All my friends are dead, among many other books for both -
Cori Doerrfeld
Cori Doerrfeld lives in Minneapolis, MN with her husband and two children. She received her undergrad degree in Studio Art from St. Olaf College and her Post Baccalaureate from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She has several published titles including many self authored/self illustrated books.
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Bao Phi
Bao Phi is a Vietnamese-American spoken word artist,[1][2] writer and community activist living in Minnesota. Bao Phi's collection of poems, Sông I Sing, was published in 2011[3] and, Thousand Star Hotel, was published in 2017[4] by Coffee House Press. He has written three children’s books published by Capstone Press. First book, A Different Pond received multiple awards, including the Caldecott Award,[5] Charlotte Zolotow Award,[6] the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature for best picture book, the Minnesota Book Award for picture books.[7]
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Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor, J.D. (Yale Law School, 1979; B.A., Princeton University, 1976), is the 99th Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, nominated by President Barack Obama to fill the seat of the retiring Justice David Souter and taking office August 8, 2009.
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Previously, she served as editor of the Yale Law Review, and as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner, 1984–1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She served as a judge on t -
Kevin Noble Maillard
Kevin Maillard is Professor of Law at Syracuse University, a contributor to the New York Times and a co-founder of Black Stream Partners LLC. He has written for The Atlantic and has provided on-air commentary to ABC News and MSNBC. He is the debut author of Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, a picture book illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, which won the Sibert Medal and the American Indian Youth Literature Honor. An enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, he is based in Manhattan, NY.
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Pat Zietlow Miller
Pat Zietlow Miller knew she wanted to be a writer ever since her seventh-grade English teacher read her paper about square-dancing skirts out loud in class and said: “This is the first time anything a student has written has given me chills.” (Thanks, Mrs. Mueller! You rock!)
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Pat started out as a newspaper reporter and wrote about everything from dartball and deer-hunting to diets and decoupage. Then, she joined an insurance company and edited its newsletter and magazine.
Now, she writes insurance information by day and children’s books by night. She has 11 picture books available and 12 more that will be coming out in the next few years.
Her books in print are: SOPHIE’S SQUASH, WHEREVER YOU GO, SHARING THE BREAD, THE QUICKEST KID IN CLARKSVI -
Beth Ferry
Beth Ferry is the author of the picture books Stick and Stone and Land Shark. Her family has cared for myriad pets, including two land sharks, a hedgehog, a blue-tongued skink, and a heap of hamsters, but her absolutely perfect pet is an English bulldog named Winston. She lives in New Jersey.
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Corinna Luyken
Corinna Luyken is the author-illustrator of the New York Times Best Seller, MY HEART, as well as THE ARGUERS (Spring 2025); ABC AND YOU AND ME (A Dolly Parton Imagination Library selection); THE TREE IN ME (an NCTE Notable Poetry Book and Indie Bestseller); and THE BOOK OF MISTAKES (which The Wall Street Journal called “sublime”). She is also the illustrator of many award winning picture books including IN THE DARK (A Marginalian Best Book of 2023) written by Kate Hoefler; PATCHWORK (A New York Times and Kirkus Best Picture Book of 2022), written by Matt de la Peña; and ADRIAN SIMCOX DOES NOT HAVE A HORSE (A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard and Comstock-Gag Read Aloud Book Award) written by Marcy Campbell.
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She was raised in Oregon, Calif -
Gaia Cornwall
Gaia Cornwall is an illustrator who loves making patterns for surface design, illustrating for children, and writing picture books. Her images can be seen in magazines, online, in logos, on various products, and even in a couple movies. JABARI JUMPS (Candlewick Press, May 2017,) is her debut picture book. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island. You can see more of her work at www.GaiaCornwall.com
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Marianna Coppo
Marianna Coppo is an author/illustrator from Italy. She studied editorial illustration at MiMaster in Milan, and now focuses on freelance illustration in Rome. She is one of the curators of Tentacoli, an independent label which specializes in fanzines and handmade products. Petra is her first picture book.
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Vashti Harrison
Vashti Harrison, author and illustrator of the bestselling Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History, is an artist, author, and filmmaker with a passion for storytelling. She earned her MFA in film and video from California Institute of the Arts, where she snuck into animation and illustration classes to learn from Disney and DreamWorks legends. There she rekindled a love for drawing and painting. Now she uses her love for both film and illustration to craft beautiful stories for children.
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Ibtihaj Muhammad
Ibtihaj Muhammad is a fencer and the first Muslim American woman in hijab to compete for the United States in the Olympic Games. She is also the first female Muslim American to medal at the Olympic Games, winning bronze in the women’s saber team event. An activist, speaker, and entrepreneur, Ibtihaj has written a memoir, Proud, and inspired the first hijabi Barbie in her likeness.
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Traci Sorell
Best-selling author and Cherokee Nation citizen Traci Sorell writes inclusive, award-winning fiction and nonfiction in a variety of formats for young people. In 2023, she shares Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series, a Kirkus Reviews starred nonfiction picture book biography illustrated by Arigon Starr, and Mascot, a middle grade fiction novel-in-verse co-authored with Charles Waters. Traci is a two-time Sibert Medal and Orbis Pictus honoree for her nonfiction work. Her first five books have received awards from the American Indian Library Association. Learn more at www.tracisorell.com.
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Jessica Love
Jessica Love is an actor and the author-illustrator of Julián Is a Mermaid. She has a BA in studio art from the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as a graduate degree from Juilliard. She has appeared in plays both on and off Broadway. Jessica Love lives in Brooklyn.
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Jordan Scott
Jordan Scott is an internationally acclaimed poet and children’s author.
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Scott is also the author of four books of poetry: Silt, Blert, DECOMP, and Night & Ox. Blert, which explores the poetics of stuttering, is the subject of two National Film Board of Canada projects.
Scott was the 2015/16 Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence at Simon Fraser University and has read from his work throughout North America and Europe. In 2018 Scott was the recipient of the Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, given to a mid-career poet in recognition of a remarkable body of work, and in anticipation of future contributions to Canadian poetry.
Scott lives on Vancouver Island and teaches at the UBC School of Creative Writing. -
Kyo Maclear
Kyo Maclear is an essayist, novelist and children’s author. She was born in London, England and moved to Toronto at the age of four with her British father (a foreign correspondent and documentary filmmaker) and Japanese mother (a painter and art dealer).
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Her books have been translated into eighteen languages, published in over twenty-five countries, and garnered nominations from the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the National Magazine Awards, among other honours.
Unearthing: a Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets (2023) was a national bestseller and awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for No -
Deborah Freedman
Once upon a time, I was an architect. But now I'd much rather build worlds in books. :)
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I am the author and illustrator of 12 of them, featuring protagonists that include an earthworm searching for its purpose in life, a house that dreams of its origins, and a character that is almost too shy to appear in its own book.
My stories have been translated into ten different languages, adopted in classrooms across the country, and honored with many starred reviews and awards. I live in a colorful house in Connecticut, where I'm always busy at work on my next books.
I love reading books and telling you about them; I hate rating them! Let's just say that if I didn't like a book, it isn't here at all.
Website: www.deborahfreedman.net
—with tons of free -
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Cynthia Leitich Smith is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author and anthologist of more than 20 books for young readers. She was named a 2025 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Candidate, the NSK Neustadt Laureate, Texas Literary Hall of Fame inductee, and winner of the Southern Miss Medallion for Outstanding Contributions in Children’s Literature. Cynthia has also been named to deliver the 2026 ALSC Children’s Literature Lecture. She is the author-curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint at HarperCollins Children’s Books, and served as the Katherine Paterson Inaugural Chair for the children’s-YA writing MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Cynthia is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation and lives in Texas.
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Maya Myers
Maya Myers is the author of Not Little and Not Perfect, illustrated by Hyewon Yum (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House), the Rosie Woods series (Capstone, '24), and National Geographic's Little Kids First Big Book of Baby Animals, along with a number of leveled readers. When she's not writing, she edits all sorts of books for publishers and authors. Maya is a former kindergarten teacher, K-5 literacy teacher, and piccolo player. She loves cooking, gardening, and (surprise!) reading. Maya lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband, author-illustrator Matt Myers, three kids, seven chickens, and a twenty-three-pound cat named Hoss.
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Andrea Tsurumi
Andrea Tsurumi is the author and illustrator of the picture books Accident!, Crab Cake, and I'm On It!(Elephant & Piggie Like Reading!) and the illustrator of books including My Head Has a Bellyache (by Chris Harris), Mr. Watson's Chickens (by Jarrett Dapier), and the Kondo & Kezumi series (by David Goodner).
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A gigantic text + image nerd, they studied sequential storytelling for an English BA at Harvard and an illustration MFA at the School of Visual Arts. While working in publishing for several years, they dove into their two big loves: indie comics and children’s books.
They live in Philadelphia, PA.
To see their latest news: andreatsurumi.com or Instagram @atsurumi -
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Emily Tetri
Emily Tetri is a Design and Color Supervisor, Background Painter and Visual Development Artist.
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Soosh
Soosh (Снежана Суш) is a self-taught, self-employed illustrator from Europe. Who has become known to the world after her watercolor series of illustrations showing heartwarming relationships between father and daughter went viral in the beginning of 2016. In 2017 she has signed a contract with Little Brown Books for Young Readers to publish her debut book “Dad by my side” which is due in May, 2018, worldwide. The book will come out in many languages: English, Chinese-simplified, German, Italian, Korean, Russian. It will also be available in Australia, France, Brazil...
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Soosh is a very productive artist, almost daily posting new illustrations to her Instagram account @vskafandre
She often uses watercolor and colored pencils which gives her w -
Michelle Cuevas
Michelle Cuevas is an award-winning author of children’s literature. She graduated from Williams College and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Virginia, where she received the Henry Hoyns Fellowship.
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Cuevas is the author of eight books for young people, most recently the 2023 Indie-List Bestseller, The Dreamatics. Her other books include Massachusetts Book Award-winning novel, The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole, national best seller The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles illustrated by Caldecott medalist Erin E. Stead, and international best seller Confessions of an Imaginary Friend. Her books have been named best of the year by Time, People, The Boston Globe, and School Library Journal, and have -
Brooke Smith
Brooke Smith is a poet and children's book author. She lives in Bend, Oregon, at the end of a long cinder lane. Brooke writes daily from her studio, looking at the meadow and many of the wild words she cherishes.
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KT Johnston
KT Johnston writes historical narrative nonfiction about ordinary animals from the dusty past who had an extraordinary impact on a person’s life, and in the process, left a mark on humanity itself.
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Bank Street calls KT’s debut RAILWAY JACK: The True Story of an Amazing Baboon one of the “Best Children’s Books of the Year,” and her second book JUBILEE: The First Therapy Horse and an Olympic Dream was selected by the Jr. Library Guild as a Gold Standard in children’s literature.
KT earned a degree in biology and conducted wildlife studies before settling into a more stationary corporate career as an analyst. KT hopes to inspire children to be curious about our world one true story at a time.
▶ Downloadable Reading Guides ◀
Bonus: KT’s Pinterest m -
Victoria Turnbull
Victoria Turnbull is a critically acclaimed creator of picture books. After winning the 2013 Association of Illustrators New Talent Award, Children's Book category, her first book 'The Sea Tiger' was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal and shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. She has since written and illustrated 'Kings of the Castle', 'Pandora', and 'Cloud Forest'. She has also illustrated 'Is It Really Nearly Christmas?' by Joyce Dunbar and 'To the End of the World, Far, Far Away' by Ronda Armitage. Victoria's latest book is called 'A Home that Means the World'.
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Nancy Van Laan
Nancy Van Laan was born in Baton Rouge, La. Her father was a colonel in the US Air Force, and the family moved frequently as Van Laan was growing up. She began making up stories to pass the time on long car trips. Although Van Laan had a learning disability, she loved to read. She began drawing and writing poetry as a child and enjoyed illustrating her own stories. Van Laan also loved ballet and began taking lessons at the age of nine. By age seventeen, she had her own ballet company in Birmingham that performed on a weekly program broadcast on Alabama Educational TV (now Alabama Public Television). Van Laan’s dancing career ended after an injury she sustained as a student at Sullins College in Bristol, Va. After completing her AA degree at
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