50 Authors and Illustrators Your Kids Will Love

In the world of children’s books, there is a select group of authors and illustrators who have made it big—some so big their names are as recognizable as their titles (just try finding a ten-year-old who doesn’t know who J.K. Rowling is).

But every Beverly Cleary, Lane Smith, Louis Sachar, and Richard Scarry was once an unknown, doggedly developing characters and storylines and sketches that would one day resonate with generations of youth. Before their books could become classics, though, they had to be discovered by readers. To help the discovery process, we present fifty great authors and illustrators relatively new on the scene, but well worth reading.

PRESCHOOL AND EARLY ELEMENTARY

Derek Anderson
What You Should Read: Over the River, Gladys Goes Out to Lunch
The Buzz: Anderson’s joyful, colorful illustrations playfully engage early learners—the Gladys tale even includes an afterward in which Anderson explains the genesis of his delightful story. “Plus,” says Barb Bassett of the Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, “[Anderson] is a great guy and a great presenter to groups.”

Lisa Brown
What You Should Read: How to Be
The Buzz: How to Be’s clean, spare illustrations offer cute examples of how to be a series of different animals—including a better person.

Marcia Wilson Chall
What You Should Read: Prairie Train and Up North at the Cabin
The Buzz: Chall has a deft touch for illustrating with words. Her stories will resonate especially with Minnesota readers who are familiar with lakes, water-skiing, prairie landscapes, fishing, and the critters of the Midwest.

Rick Chrustowski
What You Should Read: Turtle Crossing and Hop Frog
The Buzz: Drawings made with colored pencil and watercolor washes depict nonfiction narratives that entertain kids while educating them. A great choice for insect lovers.

Wallace Edwards
What You Should Read: Monkey Business and Mixed Beasts
The Buzz: Kids will giggle at the incredibly detailed drawings and crafty wordplay; adults will chortle at the clever jokes, like Wallace’s drawing of a fish named Gloria who pedals a bike.

Tim Egan
What You Should Read: Roasted Peanuts, Serious Farm, and Burnt Toast on Davenport Street
The Buzz: Egan depicts his animals in a distinctive style and with a wry sense of humor, coupling imaginative tales with vivid watercolors.

David Geister
What You Should Read: The Legend of Minnesota
The Buzz: Geister grew up near the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers, and his subjects include the verdant valleys of the Upper Mississippi River and historical renderings of the folks who lived there. Though new on the scene, his illustrations for The Legend of Minnesota are so well-executed it’s certain there will be more to come. 

Bob Graham
What You Should Read: Jethro Byrd, Fairy Child; This Is Our House; and Rose Meets Mr. Wintergarten
The Buzz: Graham depicts scenes and people in refreshingly natural ways: his  houses are a mess, his dads sometimes have earrings, his parents have tattoos and use laptop computers, and his pets are often caught in the act of being naughty. “But all of the families are always overflowing with love,” says Linnea Christensen, youth services librarian at the Plymouth branch of Hennepin County Library.

Brian Lies
What You Should Read: Bats at the Beach and Finklehopper Frog Cheers
The Buzz: Lies’ illustrations beautifully capture his characters’ emotions and expressions. He also includes fun details in his artwork that enhance the storytelling.

Sylvia Long
What You Should Read: Sylvia Long’s Mother Goose and An Egg is Quiet
The Buzz: Long evokes her love of nature with delicate, realistic watercolor renderings. She also puts a unique spin on traditional Mother Goose tales, even omitting the Old Woman in the Shoe’s proclivity for spanking her children before sending them to bed. 

Julie Paschkis
What You Should Read: Yellow Elephant: A Bright Bestiary and Night Garden: Poems from the World of Dreams
The Buzz: Paschkis’ art employs vibrant colors and geometric lines, perfect for the whimsical poetry her pieces are often paired with.

Adam Rex
What You Should Read: Tree Ring Circus and Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich
The Buzz: New on the picturebook beat, Rex has a softly detailed style of drawing and a preposterous, over-the-top sense of humor. “The Frankenstein book coming this fall is nothing less than brilliant,” says Collette Morgan of Wild Rumpus bookstore in Minneapolis.

Lauren Stringer
What You Should Read: Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs; Our Family Tree; and Winter is the Warmest Season
The Buzz: “No matter which author she is paired with, her paintings always reflect the content and style of the book,” Morgan says. Winter is the Warmest Season is the first book that Stringer has authored and it’s bound to be a Minnesota classic.

Shinsuke Tanaka
What You Should Read: Wings
The Buzz: Well-known in Japan, Tanaka is just being introduced to Americans. His wordless book is proof that thoughtful imagery—here, in the form of detailed pencil drawings—can itself propel a story.

Katherine Tillotson
What You Should Read: Penguin and Little Blue and Nice Try, Tooth Fairy
The Buzz: Whimsical, lively illustrations are the hallmark of this capable artist. Tillotson uses perspective and arrangement to convey the frenzy, space, and warmth of her storylines.

Mike Wohnoutka
What You Should Read: The Foot-Stomping Adventures of Clementine Sweet and Look What the Cat Dragged In
The Buzz: Wohnoutka’s illustrations take on comic dimensions with exaggerated proportions and interesting perspectives, nicely complementing fun-to-read texts.LATE ELEMENTARY/PRETEEN

Jessica Anderson
What You Should Read: Trudy
The Buzz: Anderson’s debut children’s novel focuses on a girl whose parents are much older than those of her peers. It’s a different topic handled with poise and understanding.

Loretta Ellsworth
What You Should Read: The Shrouding Woman
The Buzz: A newcomer, Ellsworth adroitly tackles the mystery and fear of death in her elegant historical fiction set on the Minnesota prairie of pioneer days.

Kristine Franklin
What You Should Read: The Grape Thief, Nerd No More, and Dove Song
The Buzz: Franklin covers a broad range of genres—historical fiction, contemporary humor, psychological drama—with engrossing plots and fully dimensional characters.

K.M. Grant
What You Should Read: Blood Red Horse and Green Jasper
The Buzz: Historical fantasy is Grant’s genre of choice through which she wrestles with issues of war, loyalty, and romantic love amid active, terrifically written scenes.

Cheryl Harness
What You Should Read: The Remarkable Benjamin Franklin and Just for You to Know
The Buzz: Fantastic illustrations and fascinating text make for solid nonfiction fare, especially as a way to introduce historical topics to kids. Plus, “her first novel [Just For You to Know] is a real winner,” Bassett says. “Every middle-grade girl should read it.”

O.R. Melling
What You Should Read: The Chronicles of Faerie: The Hunter’s Moon and The Chronicles of Faerie: The Summer King
The Buzz: Melling’s series of fantasy novels blend Irish mythology and geography and are packed with magic and action.

Angie Sage
What You Should Read: Septimus Heap series
The Buzz: Eclipsed by the Harry Potter behemoth, this wonderful fantasy series involving spells, wizards, and evildoers has flown under the radar. Lengthy narratives and hefty casts of characters never slow down the action.

Jane St. Anthony
What You Should Read: The Summer Sherman Loved Me
The Buzz: Though St. Anthony’s coming-of-age tale of a girl named Margaret and the boy next door for whom she develops feelings is the author’s first publication, Steve Palmquist of the Children’s Literature Network predicts that it will be a favorite.

Anne Ursu
What You Should Read: The Shadow Thieves
The Buzz: Ursu’s first book for children, a fantasy, leads readers into a shadowy underworld without taking itself too seriously. Puns and humor intersperse the tale, eliciting gasps, guffaws, and even a few groans.

Doug Wilhelm
What You Should Read: The Revealers and Raising the Shades
The Buzz: Realistic scenes and life lessons that touch on bullies, freedom of speech, and alcoholism mark Wilhelm’s artful tales.

Michael Winerip
What You Should Read: Adam Canfield of the Slash
The Buzz: A Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist for The New York Times, Winerip accurately portrays the hustle of a newsroom, albeit one that covers the middle-school beat. His fresh, appealing cast of characters deals with the ethical questions that arise in a typical journalistic setting in an absorbing, funny manner.YOUNG ADULT

Jessica Abel
What You Should Read: La Perdida
The Buzz: Abel’s first long-form graphic novel showcases her mature style both in drawing and character development as she mixes English and Spanish to illuminate the cultural issues with which her heroine wrestles.

Edward Averett
What You Should Read: The Rhyming Season
The Buzz: With an original, dexterous hand, Averett spins a story of loss and growth by blending poetry with sports—a risky endeavor, but one that works. Young readers grappling with change in their own lives may gravitate to this work.

Larry Duplechan
What You Should Read: Blackbird
The Buzz:

Jean Ferris
What You Should Read: Eight Seconds
The Buzz: Thrilling scenes of rodeo feats and elements of fairy tales are interspersed throughout Ferris’ works. Books for older readers are tempered with poignant treatment of weightier  topics, including juvenile delinquency and sexuality.

Sonya Hartnett
What You Should Read: Thursday’s Child, Surrender, and What the Birds See
The Buzz: With tight phrasing and compact narration, Hartnett pulls readers into her potent plots and thick stews of issues. In Thursday’s Child, set during the Great Depression, she follows her heroine’s struggle to survive; in What Birds See, the subject is how a child copes with the disappearance of three local children.

Terry Hokenson
What You Should Read: The Winter Road
The Buzz: Inspired by the lack of adventure stories featuring girl protagonists, Hokenson set out to craft a thrilling, suspenseful survival story, and readers are all the luckier for it.

Michael Lawrence
What You Should Read: A Crack in the Line and Small Eternities
The Buzz: Lawrence’s sci-fi/fantasy works are original and thought-provoking, though the Crack in the Line series may be better suited to sophisticated teen readers—Red Balloon staffer Joan Trygg swears by them.

Patricia Malone
What You Should Read: The Legend of Lady Ilena and Lady Ilena, Way of the Warrior
The Buzz: A strong central female character and her adventures during Europe’s Dark Ages are the focus of Malone’s novels. Historical facts are subtly woven into the narrative, which packs danger and plenty of action into its pages.

Linda Medley
What You Should Read: Castle Waiting
The Buzz: Though this author’s first graphic novel includes a cast of princesses and witches, pricked fingers, and castles, Medley turns fairy tales on their heads with contemporary, feminist plot twits. A bit cheeky, a bit tongue-in-cheek, her style is as appealing to adults as it is to kids.

Stephenie Meyer
What You Should Read: Twilight and New Moon
The Buzz: Move over Anne Rice—the stale vampire fantasy gets a creative infusion with Meyer’s humanistic approach. Her skillful writing transcends the genre, focusing more on character and plot than the gory details.

Gerald Morris
What You Should Read: The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight and others in The Squire’s Tales series
The Buzz: Morris freshens a number of Arthurian legends with droll wit, comedic timing, a sense of the fantastic, and a plot replete with adventures. She’s a masterful storyteller who Vicki Palmquist of the Children’s Literature Network says “deserves legions of readers.”

Dana Reinhardt
What You Should Read: A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life
The Buzz: Compelling characters and a tightly woven storyline help readers connect with Reinhardt’s twist on the standard adoption tale.

Meg Rosoff
What You Should Read: How I Live Now
The Buzz: For a debut novel, Rosoff’s book is getting a lot of buzz. A fictitious war and occupation affect her characters and, consequently, readers, who describe it as scary and dramatic, yet unforgettable.

Stassen
What You Should Read: Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda
The Buzz: Stassen depicts the horrors of the genocide in Rwanda through tight artwork and blunt narration, carefully brushing up against the atrocities with his strong visual storytelling. Though the characters are fictional, the graphic novel includes useful background information about the conflict.VARIOUS AGES

Mary Casanova
What You Should Read: Stealing Thunder and One-Dog Canoe
The Buzz: Casanova is a great storyteller who delves into Minnesota-related topics. And, according to the staff at The Red Balloon Bookshop, she’s also a dynamite presenter of her many books.

John Coy
What You Should Read: Crackback, Two Old Potatoes and Me, and Night Driving
The Buzz: Coy tells a darn good story, with subjects particularly appealing to boys. “He’s simply the best at what he does, and he champions all of his fellow writers,” raves Bassett.

Candace Fleming
What You Should Read: Lowji Discovers America, Our Eleanor, and Boxes for Katje
The Buzz: What a range. Fleming can write about a young boy’s experiences moving from Bombay to Illinois and also about gators cooking up bayou critters.

Nikki Grimes
What You Should Read: Jazmin’s Notebook, What is Goodbye?, and Dark Sons
The Buzz: From picturebooks to poetry to religious novels to biography, Grimes crafts stories that are distinctive from one another, proving her versatility and her deep understanding of childhood.

Liza Ketchum
What You Should Read: Where the Great Hawk Flies
The Buzz: Vicki Palmquist lauds Ketchum’s historical fiction as some of the best she’s ever read. A painstaking researcher, Ketchum evokes a distant era with period language, dress, and settings.

David LaRochelle
What You Should Read: The Best Pet of All and Absolutely, Positively Not
The Buzz: This versatile author appeals to youngsters with his picturebooks, but can also hold the rapt attention of teen readers, managing a light-hearted approach to weighty adolescent issues.

Joyce Sidman
What You Should Read: Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems and Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry
The Buzz: Inventive, inspired, funny, and clever are just a few descriptions of Sidman’s excellent poetic works. Through verse, she tackles nonfiction and scientific topics, merging form and content in a seemingly effortless manner.

Catherine Thimmesh
What You Should Read: Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women; Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon
The Buzz: A nimble nonfiction writer, Thimmesh snares readers’ attention with intriguing subjects, a conversational style, and a vivid curiosity. And she doesn’t skimp on research just because she’s writing for kids.

Deborah Wiles
What You Should Read: Love, Ruby Lavender and Each Little Bird that Sings
The Buzz: Wiles weaves heartfelt tales involving quirky characters coping with loss, jealousy, and racial injustice.