Louise Borden

Louise Borden is the author of 28 books for children. After living in the Washington, DC area for the past five years, she and her husband recently moved back to Cincinnati, OH.

Louise writes about her dot, "I'm a writer but also love to stand on the edge of paints. Sometimes I make sketches in my notebooks or make tiny field paintings. This keeps me close to the world of color, amazement, and young readers. Taking a second look often brings surprises.  Huzzah to all young artists and readers!"

Learn more about Louise on her website.

Mr. Pig and The Little Crooked Cottage

What’s The Little Crooked Cottage? Well, it’s home to four children’s book authors -- Anika Denise, Kara LaReau, Jamie Michalak, & Kristen Tracy -- and a pig. It’s also the name of a children’s book blog dedicated to celebrating authors, illustrators, and their creations!

Read and Subscribe to: Little Crooked Cottage Blog

Learn more about Anika Denise

Learn more about Kara LaReau

Learn more about Jamie Michalak

Learn more about Kristen Tracy

This Dot was created by talented children's book illustrator Christopher Denise  -- http://www.christopherdenise.com -- who also designed the banner for the blog. 

Diane Mayr

Diane Mayr is the author of Littlebat's Halloween Story and Run, Turkey, Run!   She writes poetry, too.  You can see her children's poetry at Kids of the Homefront Army: Poems of World War II Americahttp://www.homefrontarmy.com/, and her haiku and other short-form poems at Random Noodlinghttp://www.randomnoodling.com/.

Diane is also a long-time public librarian and in that position she writes two blogs, maintains several Facebook and Pinterest pages, and orders lots of books!

About her dot she says, "I've combined my love of words, pictures, and cats in a dot-shaped haiga.  Haiga, for those who don't know, is a haiku with a picture.  A haiku is extremely terse, but in its brevity it allows the reader to interpret it according to his or her own experience.  Some may read it as being negative--the cat will never catch the dot, how sad.  Others may read it as: the cat will never catch the dot, but the cat will continue to live according to its nature, pursue its prey, and probably have fun doing it!  Still others may read the haiku completely differently!  By the way, the cat is Skippy, who along with Smudge, think they own me--they're probably right!"

Aaron Becker

Aaron Becker was born in Baltimore and moved to California to attend Pomona College where he scored his first illustration job designing t-shirts for his water polo team. Since then, he's traveled to Kenya, Japan, Sweden, and Tahiti backpacking around while looking for good things to eat and feeding his imagination. He now lives with his family in Amherst, MA where he's busy at work on his next book project. You can find out more about what he's been up to lately at storybreathing.com. Source Aaron's book, Journey is a 2014 Caldecott Honor Book.

Learn more about Aaron on his website or his blog.

Watch the book trailer for Journey!

JOURNEY by Aaron Becker (official trailer) from Aaron Becker on Vimeo.

Aaron Becker be on the SharpSchu chat later this month.

Read a review of Journey by elementary school teacher Holly Mueller.

Lori Degman

Lori Degman is a teacher of Deaf/Hard of Hearing students by day and a writer of picture books by night, weekend and school holiday.  She lives in a northern suburb of Chicago with her husband and two dogs.  Her debut picture book, 1 Zany Zoo was the winner of the Cheerios New Author Contest and a mini version was distributed inside 2.2 million boxes of Cheerios.  The hardcover, published by Simon & Schuster in 2010, is now in it’s third printing. 1 Zany Zoo won the Mother's Choice Award - Gold Level for Picture Book Humor in 2012 and has been nominated for the 2012-2013 South Carolina Picture Book Award.  Ms. Degman’s second picture book, Cock-a-Doodle Oops! will be released by Creston Books in Spring, 2014.

Learn more about Lori on her website!

Kimberly Newton Fusco

Kimberly Newton Fusco is the author of Beholding Bee, The Wonder of Charlie Anne, and Tending to Grace (Awarded the ALA Schneider Family Book Award). 

Kimberly says about herself, "I am drawn to characters like Cornelia, Charlie Anne, and Bee, who "put on bigger boots and keep going," no matter what the difficulty. They help me remember to never give up....and to write every day!"

Learn more about Kimberly on her website.

Deborah Freedman

Deborah Freedman was an architect once-upon-a-time, but now she loves to build worlds in children's picture books. She is the author and illustrator of Scribble (Knopf 2007), Blue Chicken (Viking 2011), and The Story of Fish & Snail (Viking 2013). Deborah lives in a colorful house in Connecticut, where she is busy at work on her next book.

Learn more about Deborah on her website.