Chris Raschka

Celebrated illustrator of Table Manners and many other books for children.,I always try to treat the book itself as the artwork, Chris Raschka says. "I don't want you to stop while you're reading one of my books and say, 'Oh! What a gorgeous illustration!' I want you to stop at the end of the book and say, 'This is a good book.' " Chris Raschka is one of those people who knew from an early age what he wanted to be when he grew up. "It was never a question in my mind," he says. "As long as I can remember, I always knew what I would do: I would become a biologist." Somewhere along the line, however, after having to kill a mouse with his bare hands, Chris Raschka began to change his mind. "I understood it intellectually," he says, "but I just wasn't cut out to do that." Fortunately, Chris Raschka's squeamishness turned into a boon for the realm of children's books. He decided to shift his focus to painting and drawing, and has since produced a range of outstanding books that has PUBLISHERS WEEKLY calling him "one of the most original illustrators at work today." Chris Raschka illustrated A POKE IN THE I: A COLLECTION OF CONCRETE POEMS, a critically acclaimed anthology that was both a NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Best Illustrated Children's Book and a PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Best Book of the Year. "I approached it with a version of the Hippocratic oath," Chris Raschka says of the playful volume. "That was my goal: do no harm to these poems, which are all beautiful. I wanted my illustrations to be little welcoming introductions--a way in." And most recently, Chris Raschka has once again teamed up with his A POKE IN THE I partner Paul B. Janeczko to bring an equally lauded creation to poets everywhere. A KICK IN THE HEAD: AN EVERYDAY GUIDE TO POETIC FORMS teaches readers the excitement and challenge that can be found in playing by the rules of poetry. Receiving starred reviews from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, and BOOKLIST, the title seamlessly unites text and art. Chris Raschka's whimsical torn-paper artwork lends thoughtful details to essence of the book-that poetry is fun. Previously, Chris Raschka turned his talents to Dylan Thomas's timeless prose poem A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES, creating fluid illustrations that honor the poet's words, evoking their musical cadences and bringing a fresh appreciation for this most lyric work. Named a NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Best Illustrated Children's Book, this beautiful edition "should bring Dylan Thomas's work to a new generation of children," says President Jimmy Carter. The illustrator was also a force behind I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE, a picture book cowritten by legendary children's book author Bill Martin Jr. and fellow literacy expert Michael Sampson. "My parents have always respectfully refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance," Chris Raschka says. "That's why I was drawn to this project--in America, we each have the freedom to choose, including the freedom to choose whether or not to say the pledge." His aim was that his quirky images, with their simple, stylized line drawings, would "bring a sense of inclusion. That is my hope, for everyone: to make the Pledge come alive." A different sort of collaboration went into the tongue-in-cheek TABLE MANNERS, a hilarious picture book that Chris Raschka wrote and illustrated together with artist Vladimir Radunsky, a long-time friend. Chris Raschka grew up in suburban Chicago, but then "fled to New York," where he now lives with his wife, son, and a variety of pets. When not working on books, the artist likes to walk around the city, knit sweaters without a pattern, go to the opera, practice yoga, and surf, a pastime that once cost him a tooth.

Donna Rawlins

Australian illustrator of Firefighters, written by Sue Whiting.

Jane Ray

An acclaimed and award-winning artist whose distinctive artwork for children's books is recognized around the world.

Anthony Read

A novelist and television scriptwriter whose 200-plus screen credits include several episodes of Doctor Who and The Professionals.

Dom Reardon

Dana Reinhardt

Author of the teenage novel A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life.

Matthew Reinhart

Co-creator of the pop-up marvel Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs.,Matthew Christian Reinhart was born September 21, 1971 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His father, Gary, joined the Navy to become jet fighter pilot and later as a doctor, so the Reinharts moved from Florida to Texas to Illinois to California to Virginia and then South Carolina. Matthew and his mother, Judith, followed along, and were soon joined by his mischievous little sister, Erin. His childhood was filled very happy memories of family and friends. Art was always a big part of his childhood and he drew whenever he got the chance. His school notebooks often had more drawings than notes! STAR WARS fueled his young imagination, inspiring sketchbooks filled with monsters, spaceships, and action heroes. After high school, Matthew was unaware he could survive as an artist, so his father convinced him to study medicine. When college ended, he took a year off in New York, and met Robert Sabuda doing volunteer work together. Robert, whose first pop-up book, THE CHRISTMAS ALPHABET had just been released, persuaded him to attend Pratt Institute in New York City to follow the dream of being an artist. With his parents' blessing, Matthew studied industrial design, with an emphasis on toy design, but his path changed from toys to pop-ups! After working with Robert on books like THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, A B C DISNEY and MOVABLE MOTHER GOOSE. Matthew made his first big break into the pop-up world with THE POP UP BOOK OF PHOBIAS. Other books followed, including collaborations with Sabuda like their world-wide bestselling ENCYCLOPEDIA PREHISTORICA trilogy, ENCYCLOPEDIA MYTHOLOGICA: FAIRIES AND MAGICAL CREATURES, and renowned illustrator Maurice Sendak on the New York Times best-selling MOMMY?. Matthew's solo pop-up books include THE ARK, ANIMAL POPPOSITES, THE JUNGLE BOOK, CINDERELLA, A POP-UP BOOK OF NURSERY RHYMES and STAR WARS: A POP-UP GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. He continues to work and live in New York City, cutting, taping and folding paper into pop-up masterpieces. About My Work All of my pop-ups start with the story-whether it's a reinterpretation of a classic or newly written non-fiction. Of course, from the get-go, I have ideas in my head about what would be cool to make in three dimensions for each page. Writing was hard for me at first, since I am primarily a designer and illustrator. After the words are written, I usually make a written outline of large main pops, for the number of page spreads, typically around six. Robert Sabuda, my partner in pop-ups, and I love to cram as much as we can on each spread, so we use little booklets on the pages with extra pop-up surprises inside. I don't usually think of a specific mechanism to use for each idea, but I think of an object or character that needs to either become 3-D or move in a specific way. It's important for me to vary the perspective of these pops, so the reader doesn't keep seeing the same thing-because I would get bored with it! After figuring out rough list of pops, I begin to design the mechanisms by just cutting out paper, folding it, and taping it together. The initial design is completely by hand, and I make lots of mistakes! The work studio is a complete disaster while I am working, with white paper pieces everywhere. This initial design stage may take up to 3 months, and as I refine each mechanism, I begin to draw pencil die lines. Once I am able to rebuild a new copy of the pop-up from these, one of our designers or I can make very accurate die lines on the computer, so we can give the information to the manufacturer for making thousands more. The most important early step, before any drawing or artwork is done, is the paper engineering. Then, after all the pops work correctly, I can sketch lines and make final artwork for the hundreds of pieces per book. Some of our books have taken a year to create, but I've gotten faster over the years and narrowed it down to about 7 months. I consider myself a very lucky artist to be able to weave such fantastic tales with intricate, moving paper sculptures - but even luckier to share them with the world. Even though I'm an adult, I feel like a kid working at my desk, building worlds, creatures and characters that come to life from scraps of paper, tape and string. Books provide the time to think and reflect, transforming just a few pages of an author's words and an illustrator's pictures, into a fantastic adventure. Not every kid connects with a book the same way - and its important to encourage ANY kind of book reading, whether board book, picture book, ready readers, chapter book, young adult novel, manga, graphic novel, even pop-ups. Books can come alive, and I hope that the work I create can be a part of that magic. Three Things You Didn't Know About Me: 1. I am a big toy collector - especially Star Wars figures and Transformers! I've been collecting for over 30 years and have thousands of figures in my collection! Most of them are in storage, because my house isn't big enough to display them all. 2. I don't like tomatoes, but I do like ketchup and spaghetti sauce. 3. I can whistle very well and very loud. When I was in high school, my artful whistling got me a part in a play at Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, SC.

Gail Renard

Margret and H.A. Rey

Creators of the Curious George books, which have sold over twenty-five million copies worldwide.