Kelly Jordan

Kelly Jordan writes lyrical children’s books inspired by nature, family, and relationships that she hopes will evoke emotion and wonder in her readers. Her debut picture book, THE LITTLE BLUE COTTAGE, illustrated by Jessica Courtney-Tickle (Page Street Kids, May 2020) received a Kirkus star and SCBWI's Crystal Kite Award. It was followed by the rhyming nonfiction picture book, CHASE THE MOON, TINY TURTLE: A HATCHLING'S DARING RACE TO THE SEA, illustrated by Sally Walker (Page Street Kids, March 2021).

Raised on the Gulf Coast, Kelly now resides in Atlanta, with her husband and son. She is represented by Stephanie Fretwell-Hill of Red Fox
Literary.

If you like author Kelly Jordan here is the list of authors you may also like

Buy books on Amazon

Total similar authors (22)

Troy Wilson

Author of nine picture books, including PERFECT MAN, HAT CAT, and GOLDIBOOKS AND THE WEE BEAR.

Buy books on Amazon
Laura Schroff

Laura Schroff, a former advertising sales executive for over 30 years worked with several major media companies, including Time Inc. and Condé Nast. Schroff was part of the advertising team that helped make USA Today a successful national newspaper; and worked on the launch of three of the most successful start-ups in Time Inc. history—In Style, Teen People and People StyleWatch. Laura also worked at People, Brides and Ms. In 1997 an article appeared in Good Housekeeping about her unlikely friendship with Maurice and that’s when Schroff started to think about writing her book.
An Invisible Thread was released in November 2011. It became an instant New York Times bestselling book (39x) and later became a #1 New York Times and international b
Buy books on Amazon
Robert McCloskey

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 recognizing the year's best-illustrated picture book. Four of those eight books were set in Maine: Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, Time of Wonder, and Burt Dow, Deep-water Man; the last three all on the coast. He was also the writer for Make Way For Ducklings, as well as the illustrator for The Man Who Lost His Head.

McCloskey was born in Hamilton, Ohio, during 1914 and reached Boston in 1932 with a scholarship to study at Vesper George Art School. After Vesper George he moved to New York City for study at the National Academy of Desig
Buy books on Amazon
Jan Brett

With over thirty three million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real."
As a student at the Boston Museum Sch
Buy books on Amazon
Gail Gibbons

From gailgibbons.com: I was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1944. Even as a little child, I was always busy putting books together. Sometimes I would bind them with yarn to hold the pages together. I've always loved drawing and painting. I was also a very curious child. My parents tell me that I was always asking lots and lots of questions.

Later, I went on to the University of Illinois, where I studied graphic design. Then I moved to New York City, where I got a job doing artwork for television shows. Eventually I was asked to do the artwork for a children's show. While doing that show, some of the children asked me if I had ever thought of doing children's books. My mind immediately recalled how much I enjoyed doing that type of thing when
Buy books on Amazon
Candace Fleming

I have always been a storyteller. Even before I could write my name, I could tell a good tale. And I told them all the time. As a preschooler, I told my neighbors all about my three-legged cat named Spot. In kindergarten, I told my classmates about the ghost that lived in my attic. And in first grade I told my teacher, Miss Harbart, all about my family's trip to Paris, France.

I told such a good story that people always thought I was telling the truth. But I wasn't. I didn't have a three-legged cat or a ghost in my attic, and I'd certainly never been to Paris, France. I simply enjoyed telling a good story... and seeing my listener's reaction.

Sure, some people might have said I was a seven-year old fibber. But not my parents. Instead of calli
Buy books on Amazon
Brian Lies

I was born in 1963 in Princeton, New Jersey, which back then was a quiet college town, surrounded by old farmland slowly giving way to housing developments. I spent a lot of time building dams and forts in the woods across the street with my best friend, inventing things, and writing and drawing with my older sister. At various times during my childhood, we had newts, gerbils and rabbits as pets. When I was in fifth grade, an author and illustrator visited my school, and I was amazed that one could have a job writing and drawing. I wished it could be my job! But I didn’t think I was good enough at either writing or drawing to even try.

I had always liked to draw, though, and kept doing it just for fun. During high school, I also painted with
Buy books on Amazon
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
Buy books on Amazon
Marla Frazee

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 author-illustrator of Roller Coaster, Walk On!, Santa Claus the World’s Number One Toy Expert, The Boss Baby, and Boot & Shoe, as well as the illustrator of many other books including The Seven Silly Eaters, Stars, the NYT bestselling Clementine series, and God Got a Dog. Marla has three grown sons, a Little Free Library in her front yard, and a studio in her back yard under an avocado tree.
Buy books on Amazon
Jim LaMarche

Jim LaMarche is the illustrator of more than twenty books for children, including Dennis Haseley’s A Story for Bear; The Carousel by Liz Rosenberg; The Rainbabies by Laura Krauss Melmed; and Albert by Donna Jo Napoli. He is the author-illustrator of The Raft. Jim LaMarche grew up in Wisconsin and now lives in California.
Buy books on Amazon
Jory John

Jory John is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time E.B. White Read-Aloud Honor recipient.

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
Buy books on Amazon
Tom Brenner

Tom Brenner says of his inspiration for AND THEN COMES HALLOWEEN, his first book for children, "I watched October dress up for one last colorful romp before winter and felt the wild energy that sends kids out wearing capes or weird hats to rule the street for a night." He lives on Vashon Island, Washington.
Buy books on Amazon
Eliza Wheeler

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 Black, DOLL BONES (Simon & Schuster), and Mara Rockliff's picture book THE GRUDGE KEEPER (Peachtree). Eliza is the recipient of numerous Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators awards, including the Grand Prize Award for best portfolio at the 2011 SCBWI National Conference.

Eliza grew up in northern Wisconsin in a family of teachers, musicians, and artists. Some of the strongest influences on her creativity have been the wild Wisconsin seasons, canoeing the Brule River, picking blueberries with her grandmother, and digging through the
Buy books on Amazon
Emily Winfield Martin

Emily Winfield Martin makes paintings, books, and other things. When she was small, she spent every moment drawing, reading, dressing rabbits in fancy clothes, and having many peculiar daydreams. When she grew up, she began to illustrate those peculiar daydreams, and after college, she created a cottage industry called The Black Apple, which sells all manner of art and etceteras.

She works in a tiny nook of a studio filled with old children's books, wind-up toys, and stacks of fabric. Her work is inspired by fairy tales, music, myths, carnivals, children's books from the late 19th through mid 20th century, her favorite films, and autobiography.

She likes bears and sea monsters and seashell pink poppies. She lives and works among the giant fi
Buy books on Amazon
Susan Verde

Susan Verde is a New York Times bestselling children’s author, children’s yoga and mindfulness expert, former teacher, and parent. By 2022 she will have more than 20 picture books in the marketplace. She is a highly sought after speaker at conferences, festivals, and schools across the nation, and spends half the year on the road working with children and families. Verde is a frequent contributor to online magazines and has appeared on multiple podcasts speaking about writing, parenting, mindfulness, and yoga. She lives in East Hampton, New York.
Buy books on Amazon
Drew Daywalt

Ever since his childhood in one of Ohio’s most haunted houses, writer director Drew Daywalt has been writing escapist fantasy and building worlds of his own. With a degree in Creative Writing, and a concentration in Children’s Literature from Emerson College in Boston, Daywalt set off to Hollywood where he spent years writing for Disney and Universal on such beloved shows as Timon & Pumba, Buzz Lightyear, and Woody Woodpecker, and where his animated series The Wacky World of Tex Avery garnered an Emmy nomination.

His first trip into live action landed him studio screenwriting and feature film directing work with such Hollywood luminaries as Quentin Tarrantino, Lawrence Bender, Tony Scott, Brett Ratner and Jerry Bruckheimer.

With an eye towa
Buy books on Amazon
Monica Arnaldo

Monica Arnaldo grew up in Ottawa, Ontario, where she was sometimes allowed inside her older brother's forts. Drawn to illustration by her passion for children's books, she combines a variety of media to create images full of character. She and her husband live in Montreal, Quebec, with their daughter, Beatrice.
Buy books on Amazon
Joanna Gaines

Joanna Gaines is co-owner, co-founder and lead designer of Magnolia Homes, and co-stars in HGTV’s Fixer Upper with her husband Chip Gaines. She is the mother of five and lives in Waco, Texas.
Buy books on Amazon
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
Buy books on Amazon
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.
Buy books on Amazon
Brenda Peterson

Brenda Peterson is the author of over 20 books, including the recently released murder mystery, Stiletto. Her first memoir Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals, chosen as a “Best Spiritual Book of 2001,” to three novels, one of which, Duck and Cover, was chosen by New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year. Her second memoir, a dark comedy of family and faith, is I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth; it was selected by The Christian Science Monitor among the Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books and chosen by independent bookstores as an Indie Next and a Great Read.
Her non-fiction has appeared in numerous national newspapers, journals, and magazines, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Seatt
Buy books on Amazon
Sylvia Long

Sylvia Long is the illustrator of several books for children including the best sellers Ten Little Rabbits and Alejandro's Gift.
Ms. Long's detailed paintings are inspired by her love of animals and the outdoors. She lives in Arizona.
Buy books on Amazon