Authors Similar like John Kelly

Carrie Finison

Carrie Finison began her literary career at the age of seven with an idea, a box of markers, and her father’s typewriter. She has been writing off and on ever since, though she has (somewhat regretfully) traded in the typewriter for a laptop. Her picture books include DOZENS OF DOUGHNUTS, illustrated by Brianne Farley (Putnam, 2020) - a Junior Library Guild selection; DON'T HUG DOUG, illustrated by Daniel Wiseman (Putnam, 2021) - an ALA Notable Children's Book; LULU & ZOEY: A SISTER STORY, illustrated by Brittany Jackson (Running Press Kids, 2022); HURRY, LITTLE TORTOISE, TIME FOR SCHOOL, illustrated by Erin Kraan (Random House Studio, 2022). Her latest picture book is PIGS DIG A ROAD (Putnam, 2024) She lives outside Boston with her husband

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Bea Birdsong

Bea Birdsong is the author of I Will Be Fierce!, Sam’s First Word, How to Spot a Best Friend, Boop!, Goat Is the G.O.A.T., How to Grow a Family Tree, That Is Not a Dog!, and Me Too!

Bea is also a former teacher who believes in the awesome power of books to educate, entertain, and empower. Visit her online at beabirdsong.com and connect on social media at @BeaBirdsong.

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Ariel Bernstein

Ariel Bernstein is a picture book, chapter book, and short story writer. Sometimes she also writes out grocery lists as long as they include the word marshmallows. She lives in New Jersey with her family.

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Tom Lichtenheld

Children's book author/illustrator writes for kids who love to laugh and grown-ups who love to laugh along with them. When not making up stories and drawing silly pictures, he likes to get other people's kids all riled-up then send them home to their parents.

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Cynthia Leonor Garza

Cynthia Leonor Garza spent most of her childhood under the hot South Texas sun running around with her three brothers. She's a journalist who has worked for several newspapers and her commentaries have appeared on NPR and in The Atlantic. She currently lives with her two young daughters and husband in Nairobi, Kenya. Lucía the Luchadora is her first picture book.

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Sophia N. Lee

Sophia N. Lee wanted to be many things growing up: doctor, teacher, ballerina, ninja, crime-fighting international spy, wizard, time traveler, journalist, and lawyer. She likes to think she can be all these things through writing. She loves words and the meanings behind them. Her favorite word is 'chance'. What Things Mean is her first book. She lives in Manila, Philippines.

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Karl Newson

Karl Newson writes for the children’s book blog The Mudwaffler and contributes to The Creative Attic, an online publication of illustrated poetry. For All the Stars Across the Sky is his debut picture book. He lives in England.

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Greg Pizzoli

Greg Pizzoli is the author and illustrator of The Watermelon Seed, winner of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, Number One Sam, Templeton Gets His Wish, Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower, and coming in April 2016, Good Night Owl. He lives in Philadelphia.

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Marianne Dubuc

Diplômée en design graphique à l'Université du Québec à Montréal, Marianne Dubuc est auteure et illustratrice. Elle a signé une demi-douzaine de livres jeunesse, notamment deux ouvrages publiés à la rentrée 2010, Devant ma maison et Un éléphant qui se balançait...

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Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon is an award-winning actress, producer, New York Times bestselling author and founder. In 2016, she established the media brand, Hello Sunshine, which puts women at the center of every story across all platforms– from scripted and unscripted television, feature films, animated series, podcasts, audio storytelling, and digital series. Hello Sunshine is also home to “Reese’s Book Club,” a community propelled by meaningful connections with stories, authors, and fellow members. Witherspoon is best known for her roles in feature films like WALK THE LINE, WILD, ELECTION and LEGALLY BLONDE as well as Emmy award-winning TV series “Big Little Lies,” “Little Fires Everywhere” and “The Morning Show.”

source: Amazon

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Timothy Knapman

Timothy Knapman has written many books for children, including Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates, Dinosaurs in the Supermarket and Eleanor's Eyebrows. He also writes plays and co-writes musicals.

Timothy Knapman is available in a range of colours, and is washable.

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Jessica Meserve

Jessica Meserve is the illustrator of all the Daisy Dawson books. She is also an author and illustrator of several picture books.

"I received my BA and Ma in Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art. After leaving college, I worked for four years in publishing as a Children’s book designer. One spring day in 2001 I woke up ready for change. I finally took the plunge and quit my job to pursue my true passion of children’s illustration. Small was the first book I both wrote and illustrated.”

Since then she has published several books, moved between the UK, Canada and the US and has now settled in the UK with her family. She recently studied for an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art where she rediscovered her love of

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Barbara Bottner

Barbara Bottner, New York Times best-selling author, is a screenwriter, TV writer, and writing coach, who began her multi-hyphenate career as an artist and actor. Designing off-Broadway sets in the ’60s led her to performance and following her career in theatre, she began writing and illustrating books for children. In total, she has written over 40 books in all areas of children’s literature including Young Adult, Middle Grade, chapter, and "I Can Reads". Several of her award-winning picture books have been animated and translated into multiple languages.

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Fred Blunt

Fred Blunt is a children's book author & illustrator.

Fred never wanted to be an astronaut or drive a train when he grew up. Right from the beginning he knew he wanted to draw silly pictures for a living... and some decades later he's living the dream!

Inspired by Muppets, Quentin Blake and the classic cartoons, Fred has been a compulsive doodler since he was in hand-me-downs.

Since graduating from UWE Bristol in 1996, Fred has worked on all manner of projects, including greetings, editorial, advertising, publishing and animation - designing a series of animated spots for the BBC. He now works mostly in children's books, illustrating several titles for Usborne publishing, amongst others.

Fred also loves to write and draw his own silly comic st

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William Bee

William Bee was born in London but now lives in the English countryside. In addition to writing children’s books, he races a vintage sports car, is an international skier, and when at home tends his lawns and meadows.

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Birgitta Sif

Birgitta Sif studied art and design in the United States and worked as a children’s book designer at several publishers before moving to England to study illustration. She calls Oliver, her first book, "the beginning of the best journey I’ve ever taken." Recently she returned to live in her native Reykjavík, Iceland.

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Oliver Jeffers

Oliver Jeffers' work takes many forms. His distinctive paintings have been exhibited in galleries worldwide, and HarperCollins UK and Penguin USA publish his award-winning picture books, now translated into over 30 languages.

In 2007, Jeffers was the official illustrator for World Book Day, and in 2008 Lost and Found became Oliver's first book to made into animation by London-based Studio AKA.

Jeffers won a NY Emmy in 2010 for his collaborative work with the artist and director Mac Premo, and in 2013 Jeffers co-directed the video for U2's Ordinary Love with Premo. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, Jeffers now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

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Adam Rubin

Adam Rubin is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of ten critically-acclaimed picture books, including the Those Darn Squirrels trilogy, Dragons Love Tacos, Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel, Secret Pizza Party, Robo-Sauce and El Chupacabras (winner of the 2020 Texas Blue Bonnet award). In between writing projects, he designs and collects optical illusions, puzzles and games. His favorite color is blue, his favorite food is fried chicken, and his favorite animal is the otter. Adam currently lives in Brooklyn.

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Sam Zuppardi

Sam Zuppardi says he used to draw cartoons at school when he was supposed to be doing work. Among other things, he has worked in a book warehouse, a bookstore, and a toy store, and is currently working with children. The Nowhere Box is his first picture book. He lives in England.

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Julia Donaldson

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 which of us would marry him).

Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us. A wind-up gramophone wafted out Chopin waltzes.

I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.

Busking and books
Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.

The busking led to a career in singing a

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Kim Mitzo Thompson

Twin sisters Kim Mitzo Thompson and Karen Mitzo Hilderbrand write educational children's books and music together as Twin Sisters Productions.

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Jon Agee

I grew up in Nyack, New York, just up the street from the Hudson River. In our house, there was always an art project going on.

My early drawings were very animated: a lot of stuff zipping around, airplanes, racing cars, football players. No surprise my first published drawing was a pack of rats running along a highway (The Rat Race). I did that for the New York Times Op Ed page when I was still in high school.

I went to college at The Cooper Union School of Art in New York City. I studied painting, sculpture and filmmaking, but what I loved doing most—in my spare time—was drawing cartoons and comic strips.

When I graduated, I hauled my pile of doodles into the offices of a bunch of editors, with the wild notion that somebody might publish the

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Karma Wilson

Karma Wilson grew up an only child of a single mother in the wilds of North Idaho. Way back then (just past the stone age and somewhat before the era of computers) there was no cable TV and if there had been Karma could not have recieved it. TV reception was limited to 3 channels, of which one came in with some clarity. Karma did the only sensible thing a lonely little girl could do…she read or played outdoors.

Playing outdoors was fun, but reading was Karma’s “first love” and, by the age 11, she was devouring about a novel a day. She was even known to try to read while riding her bike down dirt roads, which she does not recommend as it is hazardous to the general well being of the bike, the rider, and more importantly the book. Her reading

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Frank Berrios

I was born and raised in Spanish Harlem, Queens, and the Bronx. As a New York kid, I remember riding graffiti-covered subways and hearing hip-hop blaring from parks and passing cars on the street. I loved my city. It was always buzzing with activity and different things for kids to see and do.

But I also loved to just sit and read. It started with daily comic strips like Peanuts by Charles Schulz. Then I discovered Mad Magazine and superhero comics like Batman, Spider-Man and Black Panther. These stories dealt with heroes and villains, innocence and guilt, freedom and justice. I became interested in justice and the legal system and was encouraged to become a lawyer. I had enjoyed working with kids as a counselor at a summer day camp, so I al

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Marie-Louise Gay

Marie-Louise Gay is the illustrator of many award-winning children's books. She is from Montreal, Canada.

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Jarrett Dapier

Jarrett Dapier is a writer, librarian, and drummer who has loved listening to jazz all his life. He lives in Evanston, Illinois, with his family and their many pets. His favorite treat is an Art Blakey Flakey. Jazz For Lunch! is his picture book debut.

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Sean Ferrell

Sean Ferrell lives and works in New York City. He writes novels, middle grade sci-fi, and picture books.

His most recent work is The Sinister Secrets of Singe .

His novels include Man In The Empty Suit and Numb: A Novel.
His picture books are I Don't Like Koala and The Snurtch.

Sean has been published in several literary journals, including The Adirondack Review which awarded him the Fulton Prize for his short story "Building an Elephant."

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James Horvath

James Horvath has worked as a designer and children's illustrator for more than fifteen years. In 2002 he established Jamestoons Studios (with a workforce of one) so he could focus more on his illustration. When not scratching and scribbling at his drawing table, he plays with his two young sons and wife, bangs around on the banjo, surfs, and generally has a lot of fun. A lifelong devoted cartoon fan, James Horvath lives with his family on California's Central Coast.

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Bil Lepp

Bil Lepp is an award-winning storyteller, author, recording artist, and contributing
columnist for the Charleston Gazette-
Mail. He has been a professional storyteller for more than twenty years, appearing regularly at The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, as well as at festivals, schools, corporate events, and other venues around the country. In 2018, Lepp was presented West Virginia’s highest Folklife honor, The Vandalia Award. He hosted the television show Man vs History on the History Channel. For more information and for booking please visit leppstorytelling.com

Lepp's debut picture book, The King of Little Things, was published in September of 2013, by Peachtree Publishers. The King of Little Things won the PEN Steven

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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...

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

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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.

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

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Birdie Black

Pen name for Kate Wilson, Managing Director of Nosy Crow

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Emma Reynolds

Emma Reynolds is an illustrator and author based in Manchester, UK.

Her debut author-illustrator picture book Amara and the Bats is out now with Atheneum - Simon & Schuster. When Amara moves to a new town, she discovers that her beloved bats no longer live nearby because they've lost so much of their habitat. Inspired to take action, Amara gathers her new friends to help save the bats!

Passionate about storytelling and creating unique characters, Emma is also the illustrator of Rescuing Mrs. Birdley written by Aaron Reynolds, published by Simon & Schuster.

Emma also started the #KidLit4Climate illustrated campaign, bringing together thousands of children's illustrators and authors from over 50 countries in solidarity with the youth climate st

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John Kelly

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