Trophy Picture Books Books

With more than 60 fiction and nonfiction titles for children to her credit, Aliki has been delighting her many fans since her first book was published in 1960. Born in New Jersey, she now lives in New York City.Aliki’s books for young readers include the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out titles Digging Up Dinosaurs, Fossils Tell of Long Ago, My Feet, and My Hands. Other nonfiction books by Aliki include How a Book Is Made, Mummies Made in Egypt, My Visit to the Aquarium, My Visit to the Dinosaurs, My Visit to the Zoo, Wild and Woolly Mammoths, and William Shakespeare & the Globe.

Thacher Hurd grew up in a family of children’s book artists, and after attending the California College of Arts and Crafts, he began to turn his talent to picture books. He is the award-winning author of Mama Don’t Allow, Art Dog, and most recently Moo Cow Kaboom! He has also written two board books, Cat’s Pajamas and Zoom City. Thacher and his wife, Olivia, live in Berkeley, California.

Joseph Slate, a native West Virginian, has always loved to paint and write. “I majored in journalism at the University of Washington in Seattle, worked as a reporter on The Seattle Times, was an editor for Foreign Broadcast Information Service (Washington, D.C., California, and Tokyo), then took a degree in fine arts at Yale, although I never illustrated my own books. My painting took a direction that was at odds with the fine art of illustration.”My ideas come from everywhere: a childhood drawing I did of a porcupine, a silly song I once sang to a godchild, and my teacher-niece and pupil-grand nephew getting ready for kindergarten, all kicked off an idea for a book. Now I am writing novels, and it’s the same what-if approach, although the first one came out of my West Virginia boyhood. It’s called Crossing the Trestle, and the young narrator faces an obstacle I did as a child.”

Lee Bennett Hopkins is an award-winning author and poet. He has published more than 100 books of poetry, including City I Love and Behind the Museum Door. He lives in Cape Coral, Florida.

CHARLOTTE ZOLOTOW wrote more than seventy books, many of which are picture book classics. She is survived by her truly extraordinary legacy

Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski have collaborated on several books together. Mr. Egielski lives in Milford, New Jersey.

Patricia MacLachlan is a versatile and prolific author whose titles range from picture books to novels, including the Newbery Medal–winning Sarah, Plain and Tall. Barkus was inspired by the imagined adventures of her neighbor’s dog. She lives in Massachusetts

With many award-winning books to her credit, Eloise Greenfield has achieved her status among the most celebrated of children’s authors. Multiple lifetime achievement awards include a Living Legacy Award, a Hope S. Dean Award, an NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children among others. She has been inducted into the National Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent. Africa Dream received the Coretta Scott King Award while the Coretta Scott King Author Honor and an ALA 2012 Notable Children’s book honored her title, The Great Migration: Journey to the North. Daniel Minter is an artist whose paintings, carvings, block prints, and sculptures have been exhibited both nationally and internationally at galleries and museums, including the Seattle Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Bates College, Hammonds House Museum, Northwest African American Art Museum, Museu Jorge Amado and the Meridian International Center. Minter is the co-founder and creative visionary of the Portland Freedom Trail and serves on the board of The Ashley Bryan Center, The Illustration Institute.

Anne Rockwell (1934-2018) created 200 beloved picture books, as author, illustrator and collaborator during a prolific career that lasted six decades. Her topics ranged from board books for babies to biographies for young adults. She was a self taught artist who also made sculptures, needlepoint tapestries, and fine art paintings in oil and watercolor. She collaborated as author with many illustrators, including her husband, Harlow Rockwell and her daughter, Lizzy Rockwell.

Felicia Bond is the New York Times bestselling creator of The Day It Rained Hearts, The Halloween Play, Tumble Bumble, Poinsettia and the Firefighters, and Poinsettia and Her Family. She is also the illustrator of the mega-selling If You Give . . . book series, which began with If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. She lives in New Mexico.

Wendell Minor has illustrated dozens of picture books, and his work has won countless awards and is in permanent collections of such institutions as the Museum of American Illustration and the Library of Congress. His cover illustrations have graced some of the most significant novels of our time by authors such as Toni Morrison, David McCullough, and James Michener. He lives in Washington, Connecticut. Visit him online at MinorArt.com.

Jan Spivey Gilchrist is the award-winning illustrator-author of seventy-four children’s books. Dr. Gilchrist illustrated the highly acclaimed picture book The Great Migration: Journey to the North, winner of the Coretta Scott King Honor Award, a Junior Library Guild Best Book, an NAACP Image Award nominee, a CCBC Best Book, and a Georgia State Children’s Book Award nominee. She won the Coretta Scott King Award for her illustrations in Nathaniel Talking and a Coretta Scott King Honor for her illustrations in Night on Neighborhood Street, all written by Eloise Greenfield. She was inducted into the Society of Illustrators in 2001 and into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent in 1999. She lives near Chicago, Illinois.

Lizzy Rockwell is a picture book author and illustrator with over 35 books published. Her artwork can also been found in games, magazines and murals. Lizzy loves science, food, and animals, all of which have been themes in her books. Much of what she knows about making books, she learned as a child. Her parents, Anne and Harlow Rockwell made books in their home studio in Connecticut, when Lizzy and her brother and sister were growing up. As an adult, Lizzy collaborated as illustrator on 19 books written by her mother. Her favorite things to draw are animals, plants, landscapes, and children’s faces. When Lizzy is not working in her studio, in Bridgeport, CT, she might be found in her garden, baking in her kitchen, or taking long walks at the beach and the woods, with her English Setter, Reggie. She also volunteers every week as artistic director and community organizer for a quilting group called Peace by Piece: The Norwalk Community Quilt Project.