Festival author profiles
Joan Bauer Speaking Oct. 9-11
In her eight novels, Joan Bauer explores difficult issues with humor and hope. Her books have won numerous awards, among them the Newbery Honor Medal, the LA Times Book Prize, the Christopher Award, and the Golden Kite Award of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Bauer is a New York Times best-selling author.
Her novels have been chosen for many best book lists, among them, ALA Notable Books, ALA Best Books, ALA Quick Picks, American Bookseller Pick of the List, School Library Journal Best Books, Smithsonian Notable Children's Books, and VOYA's Perfect 10s. Rules of the Road was chosen as one of the top young adult books of the last 25 years by the American Library Association. In addition, her novels have been nominated and featured on over 100 Children's Choice Awards and State Best Book Reading Lists.
Bauer lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, computer scientist Evan Bauer and (when she's home from graduate school) their no-longer-teenage daughter.
See also: Rules of the Road teaching guide; Hope was Here teaching guide
Cynthia DeFelice
Speaking Oct. 9-11
If you had asked Cynthia DeFelice when she was a child "what she wanted to be" when she grew up, she would have said, "Happy." DeFelice would never have said, "I want to be an author." She loved to read, but never dreamed of writing.
It wasn't until 1987 that she decided to try writing a book for children. Cynthia was working as an elementary school librarian, and loved reading aloud to children, telling them stories, recommending books for them, and hearing their responses when they brought the books back. She said to herself, "I would be so happy if I could write a book that would make kids' faces look like that!" Now, 21 years, 15 novels and 10 picture books later, she feels like the luckiest person in the world. Kids ask, "What is the best thing about being an author?" There are so many best things!
Creating a character out of thin air, and feeling that character come to life beneath her fingers on the computer keyboard; working at two o'clock in the morning, and wearing pajamas or sweatpants to work; being her own boss. She loves writing a book that she would have loved to read when she was a child.
Cynthia lives in Geneva, New York, with her husband Ralph and their puppy Josie. Ralph and Shellie, their kids, are all grown up and off living exciting lives of their own.
Gail Gibbons
Speaking Oct. 9-11
Gail Gibbons was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1944. Even as a little child, she was always busy putting books together, and was a very curious child. She was always asking lots and lots of questions.
Gail studied graphic design at the University of Illinois, then moved to New York City, obtaining a job doing artwork for television shows. Eventually Gail was asked to do the artwork for a children's show. While doing that show, some of the children asked her if she had ever thought of doing children's books. An idea for a book was put together and right away a publisher bought it. That book was called Willy and His Wheel Wagon. Since then, over 135 non-fiction books have been written and illustrated by Gail. Gail loves to research because she gets to ask lots of questions, just like when she was a kid. She also gets to travel and meet lots of interesting people.
See also: Dinosaur Dicoveries teaching guide (PDF)
Mike Graf
Speaking Oct. 9-11
Mike Graf has taught gifted classes in elementary schools, been a TV weatherman, and presently teaches at Chico State University. When Mike visits schools he gives presentations on weather, national parks, caving, writing children's books, the writing process, science, and gifted education.
Mike has backpacked the world's national parks, interviewed storm-chasers and special-effects wizards, met the last surviving Angel Island immigrant, rafted through spectacular caves, researched wolf restoration, rock-climbed in Yosemite, explored ghost towns, and much more. His children's books reflect all these experiences and more.
Mike loves visiting schools. He has taught and conducted workshops and presentations on weather, national parks, speaking, children's book writing, and science, among other topics.
Mo Willems
Speaking Oct. 9-11 (luncheon speaker for Saturday's adult conference)
#1 New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator Mo Willems is best known for his Caldecott Honor winning picture books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity.
In addition to such picture books as Leonardo the Terrible Monster, Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, and Time to Pee!, Mo created the Theodor Seuss Geisel Medal winning Elephant and Piggie books, a series of early readers.
The New York Times Book Review called Mo “the biggest new talent to emerge thus far in the 00's." Mo began his career as a writer and animator for television, garnering six Emmy Awards for his writing on Sesame Street, creating Nickelodeon's The Off-Beats, Cartoon Network’s Sheep in the Big City and head-writing Codename: Kids Next Door. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his family.
See also: The Pigeon teaching guide (PDF); Knuffle Bunny teaching guide (PDF); Elephant & Piggie teaching guide (PDF)
Hans Wilhelm
Speaking Oct. 10-11
With over thirty five million books in print, Hans Wilhelm is one of America's foremost author/illustrator of children's books. Many of his 200 books have been translated into twenty languages and have become successful animated television series that are enjoyed by children all over the world. His books have won numerous international awards and prizes.
His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Mazza Museum of Art, Dodd Center at the University of Connecticut, Kerlan Collection at University of Minnesota, de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Hans was born in Bremen, Germany. He lived for many years in Africa before moving to America. He now lives in Weston, Connecticut in an old farmhouse with his artist wife Judy Henderson.
As a noted speaker Hans has been inspiring audiences around the world with his spiritual and life-affirming concepts that he shares in many of his books.
See also: Free downloadable children's books; teaching activities for Wilhelm's books
Matt Mason
Speaking Oct. 10
After earning his MA in Creative Writing from the University of California at Davis, Matt Mason moved to Omaha where he now lives with his wife Sarah and baby daughter, Sophia.
His first full-length collection, Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know, was released in 2006 and won the 2007 Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. Mason also won the 2006 Nebraska Book Award for Anthology for co-editing Slamma Lamma Ding Dong: an Anthology of Nebraska’s Slam Poets. Matt also has released a chapbook, Mistranslating Neruda and a collection of poems about his father’s death, When The Bough Breaks.
Matt has read his poetry everywhere from behind the podiums of the Nebraska Book Festival to the stages of the national Poetry Slam as well as universities, high schools, libraries, book stores, radio shows, state fairs, art museums, bars, ice cream parlors and coffee shops around the country.
Lois Lowry
Endowment dinner keynote speaker Oct. 11
Lois Lowry is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After several years at Brown University, she turned to her family and to writing. She is the author of more than thirty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader's Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, NUMBER THE STARS and THE GIVER. Her first novel, A SUMMER TO DIE, was awarded the International Reading Association's Children's Book Award. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge and an 1840s farmhouse in Maine.
David & Yvonne Freeman
Speaking at the adult conference Oct. 11
Yvonne Freeman is a professor of bilingual education and David Freeman is a professor of language arts/ESL at The University of Texas at Brownsville. Both are interested in second language acquisition, literacy, bilingual education, and dual language for English language learners. The Freeman’s have published articles and book chapters jointly and separately on the topics of second language teaching, biliteracy, bilingual education, linguistics, and second language acquisition. The Freeman's newest book, English Language Learners: The Essential Guide (2007) is meant for mainstream teachers with ELL's in their classrooms. Their Essential Lingistics (2004) makes linguistics accessible and understandable for teachers. The book Closing the Achievement Gap: How to Reach Limited Formal Schooling and Long-Term English Learners (2002), forms the basis of the NCTE Teaching English Language Learners Kit.
Anita Silvey
Speaking at the adult conference Oct. 11
The author of 100 Best Books for Children and 500 Great Books for Teens, Anita Silvey has devoted 35 years to promoting books that will turn the young -- and families -- into readers.
As publisher of children’s books for Houghton Mifflin Company from 1995-2001, she oversaw all the children’s book and young adult publishing for both the Houghton and Clarion lists. During her watch, the lists received three Caldecott Medals, two Newbury Medals, two Hans Christian Andersen Awards, and two Grammy nominations.
In a unique career in the children’s book field, Ms. Silvey has divided her time equally between publishing and evaluating children’s books. But her lifelong conviction that “only the very best of anything can be good enough for the young” forms the cornerstone of all of her work. Prior to her role as publisher, Ms. Silvey served for eleven years as Editor-in-Chief of The Horn Book Magazine, a publication many call “the Bible of children’s literature.” As Editor of Horn Book, she read several thousand books a year, hunting for those of exceptional quality that children return to again and again.
Ms. Silvey is the editor of Children’s Books and Their Creators, an overview of 20th Century children’s books. Little Brown published her selection of short stories for young adults, Help Wanted. Houghton Mifflin published The Essential Guide to Children’s Books and Their Creators in 2002, 100 Best Books for Children in 2004, and 500 Great Books for Teens in 2006.
Currently a member of the Editorial Board of Cricket Magazine and the Board of Directors for the Vermont Center for the Book, she teaches “Modern Book Publishing” at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library Science in Boston and "Children’s Book Author Studies" at St. Michael’s College in Burlington, Vermont. She is the Literature Consultant for the 2009 Houghton Mifflin Reading series and lectures throughout the United States on children's books and reading.