Featured authors and illustrators for the 2010 festival
Patricia Polacco Patricia Polacco lived the first five years of her life on a farm in Union City, Mich., with her mom and grandparents. “It was the most magical time of my life. This was the place where I heard such wonderful stories told and where a real meteor fell into our front yard! Drawing, painting, and sculpture have always been a part of her life, but Polacco wasn't a very good student in elementary school; she had a difficult time with reading and writing. She was 14 years old when one of Polacco’s teachers discovered she had dyslexia. Polacco went on to earn a degree in fine art and a Ph.D. in art history.
Patricia began writing children's books when she was 41 years old and uses the many voices of her heritage: Russian, American Midwestern and Jewish. Polacco’s award winning books include:
Thank You Mr. Falkner, Pink and Say, Chicken Sunday, and her latest,
January’s Sparrow.
Polacco has two children, and has since moved back to that magical farm in Union City, where she hosts various events that celebrate children's literature.
Web: patriciapolacco.com
Dan Gutman
Dan Gutman graduated from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., with a degree in psychology, but after a few unhappy years in graduate school, he decided that psychology was not for him. He decided what he really wanted to do was be a writer. In 1982 Gutman started a video games magazine called Video Games Player. After a three year run with the magazine, he decided to take a gamble and become a full-time freelance writer. He tried his hand at writing about something he had always loved – sports – and wrote It Ain't Cheatin' If You Don't Get Caught which is about baseball. Gutman’s first children’s novel was They Came From Centerfield, and he loves taking a blank page and turning it into an entire world.
Gutman has had a number of books nominated for the Golden Sower award, including The Homework Machine, Back in Time with Thomas Edison, and the 2009 winner Satch & Me.
Dan lives in Haddonfield, N.J. with his wife Nina and their children, Sam and Emma.
Web: dangutman.com
Ashley Bryan Ashley Bryan is the illustrator or author of more than 35 books.
Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum, won the Coretta Scott King Award, while
Lion and the Ostrich Chicks and Other African Folk Tales, Ashley Bryan’s ABC’s of African American Poetry, and
What a Morning! The Christmas Story in Black Spirituals, were selected as Coretta Scott King Honor books. In 1990, Bryan received the Arbuthnot Prize, one of the highest honors in children’s literature. Bryan studied at Cooper Union in New York City and earned a degree in philosophy at Columbia University. He lives in Isleford, Maine.
Sarah Weeks Sarah Weeks has written more than forty picture books and novels for children and young adults. She is a graduate of Hampshire College and NYU.
Sarah’s novel
So B.
It is a multi-award winner. She has also written two four-book series of humorous middle-grade fiction,
Regular Guy and
Boyds Will be Boyds. Her much awaited newest novel,
As Simple As It Seems arrives on the scene this spring. Sarah’s popular picture books include
Mrs. McNosh Hangs up Her Wash, If I Were a Lion and
Ella, of Course.
Sarah is a founding member of A.R.T. (Authors Readers Theater), a group of authors who perform dramatic readings of their works that includes Avi, Pam Munoz Ryan, Richard Peck and more. Weeks is currently an adjunct faculty member in the prestigious Writing Program at the New School University in New York City and lives in Nyack, New York.
Web: sarahweeks.com
Alyssa Satin Capucilli When Alyssa was a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., the weekly trip to the public library with her mother and sisters was much anticipated. She loved the quiet hush of the room, the shelves full of books, and the books in her hands. She quickly became an avid reader and vowed to read every book from A to Z. She spent much of her time writing, imagining, and creating stories, songs, poems, and puppet shows, and began to focus on story telling in another way – telling stories through movement and dance.
Alyssa is the author of the much-loved Biscuit series as well as the new Katy Duck series.
She lives in a small cozy cottage in Hastings on Hudson, New York. It is still filled with books and even more book lovers -- her two children, Peter and Laura, husband Bill, and the lovable chocolate Labrador, Huckleberry.
Web: alyssacapucilli.com
Pat Schories Pat Schories was born in New York, grew up in Ohio, and now, once again, lives in New York. Her life as a child was spent outdoors: in the woods and fields, running, climbing, biking, and swimming, and indoors: reading and making art. Now, as an adult, her favorite pastimes are much the same.
Probably best known as the illustrator of the
Biscuit books written by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, Schories is now using her story-telling skills to create new books starring
Jack and his family. Jack and Biscuit are modeled after her own two beloved dogs, Speed and Spike.
Web: patschories.com
Ralph Masiello Ralph Masiello studied marine biology at the University of Tampa, Fla., drawing his class notes instead of taking notes in text. The art professors came by to see him one day and after seeing his drawings, talked him into taking an art class. Eventually, he studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with a degree in fine art.
After graduation Masiello worked on projects for Scholastic
Magazine, Tennis Magazine, The Boston Review, ComputerWorld, book covers for Viking, Penguin, Peachtree, Irwin, and Hodder and Stoughton publishing companies, and many others. In 1986, Jerry Pallotta contacted Masiello about being the illustrator for his book,
The Icky Bug Alphabet. It has sold over a million copies throughout the world. The two have collaborated on many other titles since then, with more planned for the future.
Some of Ralph’s other titles include
The Ocean Drawing Book, The Skull Alphabet Book and
The Flag We Love.
Web: ralphmasiello.com