Mo Willems
#1 New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator Mo Willems is best known for his Caldecott Honor winning picture books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny: a cautionary tale.
In addition to such picture books as Leonardo the Terrible Monster, Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, and Time to Pee, Mo has created the Elephant and Piggie books, a series of early readers, and published You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons, an annotated cartoon journal sketched during a year-long voyage around the world in 1990-91.
The New York Times Book Review called Mo “the biggest new talent to emerge thus far in the 00's."
Mo’s work books have been translated into a myriad of languages, spawned animated shorts and theatrical musical productions, and his illustrations, wire sculpture, and carved ceramics have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the nation.
Mo began his career as a writer and animator for television, garnering 6 Emmy awards for his writing on Sesame Street, creating Nickelodeon's The Off-Beats, Cartoon Network’s Sheep in the Big City and head-writing Codename: Kids Next Door.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his family.
“If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.”
“The first bowl of chocolate pudding was too hot, but Goldilocks ate it all anyway because, hey, it's chocolate pudding, right?”
“And the moral for Dinosaurs is: Lock the Back Door!”
“The difference between children and adults is that they're shorter - not dumber.”
“I always say, 'Books beat boredom,' said Amanda wisely.”
“People think, Hey, I love kids, I want to write children’s books. But they think children are happy. That’s their first mistake. [Messinger, Jonathan. "Guilt for dinner: The Mo Willems interview." Hipsqueak. 5 May 2011. Web. 18 November 2011.]”
“All of the life-changing awesomewords and pictures and ideasinside your library are uselesswithout just one word outsideyour library: Open.”
“A book, being a physical object, engenders a certain respect that zipping electrons cannot. Because you cannot turn a book off, because you have to hold it in your hands, because a book sits there, waiting for you, whether you think you want it or not, because of all these things, a book is a friend. It’s not just the content, but the physical being of a book that is there for you always and unconditionally.”
“I bet your mom would let me." -Pigeon, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus-”
“Aggle flabble kabble . . . snurp?”
“My favorite book is my next one. I’m always hoping to make my next book my best one.”