background preloader

Video Interviews with Top Children's Book Authors and Illustrators

Video Interviews with Top Children's Book Authors and Illustrators
Related:  Authors N-Z

Cynthia Rylant Michael P. White -- Illustrated Books The Library Dragon Written by Carmen Agra Deedy Illustrated by Michael P. White When Sunrise Elementary School advertised for a thick-skinned librarian with a burning love of books, Miss Lotta Scales knew she was perfect for the job. Who could guard books better than a REAL dragon? "She kept a fiery eye out to make sure no one removed any books from the shelves.... The teachers, singed and scorched, formed a delegation. Fortunately, nearsighted Molly Rickmeyer stumbles into a copy of Snuff the Magic Dragon and reads the tale out loud.

Drahos Zak Drahos Zak arrived in Australia from the Czech Republic in 1980 after completing a PhD in Illustration and Graphic Design at Charles University, Prague. In Australia Drahos has worked as an Illustrator for various newspapers and magazines, but it is his illustrations for children’s books that have gained him international recognition. Patricia Polacco How Shaun Tan transformed children’s literature The king said, “What punishment should someone receive who drags an innocent victim out of bed and throws her into the river to drown?” The stepmother said at once, “That’s a dreadful crime. The murderer should be put in a barrel studded with nails, and rolled downhill into the water.” “Then that is what we shall do,” said the king. He ordered such a barrel made, and as soon as it was ready, the woman and her daughter were put inside and the top was nailed down. The barrel was rolled downhill till it fell into the river, and that was the end of them. It is episodes such as this, from Philip Pullman’s retelling of “The Three Little Men in the Woods”, that explain why the tales of the Brothers Grimm are not so prominently displayed in the children’s sections of British bookshops these days. Shaun Tan, the latest artist to give form to these German folk stories collected in the early 19th ­century, is not one to shy away from difficult subject matter. Shaun Tan is a visionary and a magician.

Scott Westerfeld R.L. Stine Shel Silverstein Rick Riordan Terry Pratchett Larry Finlay, MD at Transworld Publishers: “I was deeply saddened to learn that Sir Terry Pratchett has died. The world has lost one of its brightest, sharpest minds. In over 70 books, Terry enriched the planet like few before him. Terry faced his Alzheimer’s disease (an ‘embuggerance’, as he called it) publicly and bravely. My sympathies go out to Terry’s wife Lyn, their daughter Rhianna, to his close friend Rob Wilkins, and to all closest to him.” Terry passed away in his home, with his cat sleeping on his bed surrounded by his family on 12th March 2015. A Just Giving page donating to the Research Institute for the Care of Older People (RICE) has been set up in his memory: There have been so many visitors to the Terry Pratchett website and forum since Thursday's desperately sad news, and as a result the website has crashed.

Darren Shan - Author of the Darren Shan Saga and The Demonata Adam Rubin

Related: