Featured Authors or Illustrators are selected each month and archived here. Check back often to find more suggestions for great reading.
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April 2009
Kevin Henkes
Brief Biography
Kevin Henkes published his first picture book in 1981. Since then he has published more than 30 picture books and novels. In 1994 he won a caldecott honor for Owen, a charming picture book about a little mouse, his blanket, and a nosy neighbor. In 2005, he won the Caldecott for Kitten's First Full Moon, beautifully illustrated in black and white. Henkes has also been recognized for his novels, winning a Newbery honor in 2004 for Olive's Ocean.
Henkes is perhaps best known for his charming mouse stories about Lilly, including Chester's Way, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Julius, The Baby of the World (one of our staff's favorite new sibling books), and Lilly's Big Day in which Lilly is convinced she is to be the flower girl in her teacher's wedding. The other mouse picture books include Sheila Rae, the Brave and Wemberly Worried, A Weekend With Wendell, Chrysanthemum and Owen.
Henkes lives with his wife, illustrator Laura Dronzek and their children in Madison, Wisconsin.
Work with Laura Dronzek
Birds celebrates the beauty and magic of our feathered friends in our everyday lives: birds on a telephone wire, a single bird in a winter tree, a flock of birds flying from a tree, birdsong in the morning. Birds also celebrates our feathered friends in our imagination: "if clouds were birds" or "if birds made marks with their tail feathers when they flew". Laura Dronzek's colorful illustrations of birds of all shapes sizes and colors and clever graphic design bring Henkes' text to life. This is a perfect spring book for any young child or for bird lovers of any age.
Recent Picture Books
From our April 2004 Staff Picks: Written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes, Kitten's First Full Moon is the charming story of a kitten that mistakes the moon for a bowl of milk. After numerous attempts at reaching the milk, Kitten gives up and goes home to find a bowl of milk waiting for her. With simple black, white, and gray illustrations and recurring phrases, this gentle tale is perfect for small listeners.
The Mouse Stories
From our Spring 2006 Staff Picks: Lilly's Big Day: Lilly is back. Now her teacher Mr. Slinger is getting married and Lilly is convinced that she will be his flower girl. Her parents try to explain that she is mistaken but Lilly goes on determined that she will be chosen to be the flower girl. Finally after she makes several attempts to let Mr. Slinger know how much she wants to be his flower girl, he tells her that his niece will be the flower girl but that Lilly can be Ginger's assistant. Lilly makes a great assistant even down to carrying the fear stricken niece down the aisle. As usual Lilly will not disappoint her readers or her listeners.
The Board Books
Other Picture Books
The Novels
From our April 2004 Staff Picks: Olive's Ocean: Martha is twelve and on the verge of so many new feelings she can hardly sort one from the other. There's her family - loving and lovable but slightly battered by the demands of Martha's two-year-old sister and her father's pipe dream of becoming a writer, and her grandmother who finally admits that aging hasn't been a picnic and subsequently forces Martha to examine the possibility of losing her. There's the "almost twin" brother she adores but who seems to be slipping away into his own adolescence. And then there's Jimmy Manning who is winning her heart- and another little game he is playing at Martha's expense.
Through it all Martha finds herself confused by the tragic death of a friend she didn't know she had. Olive's death sets Martha on a quest to examine and finally come to cherish her relationships with friends and family.
Olive's Ocean is simple, even sparse, in its telling. But it is a story that skillfully takes the reader on Martha's journey to sort the complex emotions and feelings of adolescence. Kevin Henkes has masterfully slipped into Martha's skin to tell this story of one twelve-year-old who rediscovers the important relationships in her life.