FEATURED BOOKS
ABOUT ME
It's deeply gratifying to publish a picture book and realize it may delight a child, even a child I don't know and will never meet. I fell in love with picture books when I babysat my four nieces for nine years. We'd walk to the library and leave with an armload of books. I enjoyed the books too – sometimes more than the kids did! Like many adults, I thought I could write a better story than some I had read. I began writing and submitting manuscripts. I never guessed it would take thirty years to see one of my stories published.
My debut picture book, Kitten and the Night Watchman, won the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Margaret Wise Brown Prize. It was named a best book of the year by The Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and BookPage. Stanley's Secret and Ethan and the Strays followed. I am a cat lover, amateur tap dancer, and life-long Chicagoan who has worked as a warehouseman, mail handler, laborer, and night watchman. I am now a full-time children's book author!