Presenters

©2006 David Wiesner from Flotsam. Used with permission.

Robert Burleigh, born and raised in Chicago, Robert Burleigh graduated from DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana) and later received an MA in humanities from the University of Chicago. Over the past 35 years, he has published poems, reviews, essays, filmstrips and videos — as well as more than 30 children’s picture books. His children’s books run a broad gamut, from stories geared toward preschoolers to survival stories and biographies aimed at seven- to eleven-year-olds. More information is available on his Web site, Robertburleigh.com. In addition to writing, Mr. Burleigh paints regularly (under the art name Burleigh Kronquist) and has shown work in one-person and group shows in Chicago, New York, and elsewhere around the country.

Mary Downing Hahn was born in Washington, DC but has lived in Maryland for as long as she can remember - and even before she can remember. She grew up in College Park, a small town then despite the ever-growing University of Maryland. After graduating from nearby Northwestern High School, she began college at the University of Maryland-at least that’s how she thought of it at the time. She walked to her college classes from home just as she’d walked to her high school classes. With little thought to her future employment, she majored in fine art and minored in English, which meant that as soon as she completed the dreaded math, science, and physical education requirements—she was free to spend her time doing what she loved best: drawing, painting, reading, and writing. Although her first love was art this led to her becoming a writer instead. After thirty years of telling stories, she now divides her time between words and pictures.

Susan Meddaugh, born in New Jersey many dog years ago, Susan always loved to draw and paint. She drifted to Massachusetts for college, where, mysteriously, she majored in French. After graduation, luck, fate and no typing skills led to a job as an assistant designer of Children’s Books at a Boston publishing house. For 10 years she learned on the job, designing books and working with amazing authors and illustrators. She particularly came to love the picture book—the puzzle of putting words and pictures together to tell a story. So she left to do her own books and other freelance illustration. Eventually Susan got married, had a baby and adopted a dog named Martha. She continued to do picture books and to adopt dogs, rodents, birds and other characters for her stories. Now Susan is working on a series for WGBH public television, based on her picture book, Martha Speaks. It’s all connected, one thing leading to the next. Except for the major in French.

Gennady Spirin was born near Moscow in the former Soviet Union. His delicate watercolor illustrations echo the great masters of the Renaissance. Mr. Spirin has received four gold medals from the Society of Illustrators, the Golden Apple from the Bratislava International Biennial, and First Prize at both the Bologna and Barcelona International Book Fairs, and has appeared on The New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year list four times. Mr. Spirin lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife and three sons.

Rebecca Stead is the author of WHEN YOU REACH ME (Wendy Lamb Books), a New York Times Notable Book, New York Times bestseller, and winner of the 2010 John Newbery Medal. Rebecca’s first novel for children, FIRST LIGHT (Wendy Lamb Books/Yearling), is a Junior Library Guild selection and a Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year (2008). Rebecca grew up in New York City, where she worked as a public defender until about ten years ago. She lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband, Sean, and their sons, Jack and Eli.

David Wiesner As a child growing up in suburban New Jersey, David Wiesner re-created his world daily in his imagination. A swamp, a cemetery and a landfill bound the outskirts of his neighborhood, and these exotic lands became anything from a faraway planet to a prehistoric jungle. When the everyday play stopped, he would follow his imagination into the pages of books, wandering among the dinosaurs of Charles Knight, the surreal landscapes of Salvador Dali and the fantastic universes of Jack Kirby. The images before him generated a love of detail, an admiration for the creative process, and a desire to tell stories with the pictures he himself was drawing. He went on to become a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he was able to commit himself to the full-time study of art and to explore further his passion for visual storytelling. David Wiesner has been awarded the Caldecott Medal three times – for Tuesday in 1992, The Three Pigs in 2002, and Flotsam in 2006. Two other books of his, Sector 7 and Free Fall, were named Caldecott Honor Books. Among other honors, Wiesner holds the Japan Picture Book Award for Tuesday, the French Prix Sorcières for The Three Pigs, and a New York Times Ten Best Illustrated award for Flotsam. David was the United States nominee, and a finalist, for the 2008 Hans Christian Andersen Award. In 2009 a retrospective of his work was exhibited at the Sungkok Art Museum in Seoul, Korea.